Press Releases

25. 1. 200814:10

Declaration issued on the occasion of the International Day in Commemoration of Holocaust Victims and for Prevention of Crimes against Humanity

„On the 27th of January, we remind ourselves of a disgraceful failure of our civilization – a failure of all the values it represents, such as respect for human life and freedom, and the personal rights of each individual. Shoah makes us remember that once we abandon these values, we lose the right to call ourselves humans. It makes us realize that small evils invariably beget great ones, and therefore each evil needs to be nipped in the bud. It reminds us that extremism is not embedded in any specific ideology, specific religion or national community, but its roots are elsewhere.

Every idea, every god, every national sentiment can be abused if they are revered by people who regard their „truth“ as the only correct creed and even put it above the right of other people to life. We have not yet got rid ourselves of this sad legacy of the holocaust. There is no right and left wing, Christian and Islamic, German and Russian extremism. Just as there is either freedom or its absence, there is either extremism or its absolute rejection.“

Mirek Topolánek
Prime Minister of the Czech Republic