President Shimon Peres met with the IAC Presidium in Jerusalem

September 7th, 2010

IAC Presidium met with President Peres in Jerusalem:
"As survivors of Auschwitz it is our special duty to remind people that Sinti and Roma were our fellow sufferers in Auschwitz and in Birkenau"

The Presidium of the International Auschwitz Committee met in Jerusalem from 5 to 7 September. In talks with President Shimon Peres and Reuven Rivlin, the president of the Israeli parliament (the Knesset), Noach Flug (Jerusalem), Prof. Felix Kolmer (Prague) and Roman Kent (New York) reported as Auschwitz survivors on the committee’s political and educational work.

In his speech at a reception held by the president of the Knesset, Felix Kolmer stressed: “Our most important activities concentrate on contending with right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. We visit schools, we seek dialogue with young people, and we organize exhibitions. Our work is not shaped by hatred, nor is it motivated by any hatred of the German nation. We know that hatred takes hold of and paralyzes people, making them incapable of constructive involvement. This is our philosophy, and it will determine our work for as long as we live. We are old, but still we work for the future, even though it will not be our future.”

In talks with President Shimon Peres, who received the members of the IAC Presidium at his official residence, Roman Kent also reported on the great diversity of educational activities carried out by the IAC member organizations, which have also culminated in collaboration with the United Nations. Kent addressed Peres saying: “Being received here by you today is of very special significance to the survivors of Auschwitz. We know very well that 6 million Jews would not have been murdered had there been a state of Israel in 1939.”

During its conference the IAC Presidium also discussed the future work and the design of the Auschwitz Memorial: the French Union des déportés d’Auschwitz recently called for the mounting of an exhibition at the former Birkenau extermination camp dealing with the fate of European Jews in Birkenau and its background history.
In a meeting at the end of October in Berlin, the IAC member organizations will be looking into the French suggestions.

Noach Flug, the President of the International Auschwitz Committee, summed up the results of the Jerusalem conference at a meeting with Israeli survivors of Auschwitz in the King David Hotel: “We are watching the situation of the Roma in Europe with great concern. The Roma are experiencing discrimination and persecution; they are being ostracized, expelled and even forced into ghettos. As survivors of Auschwitz it is our special duty to remind people that Sinti and Roma were our fellow sufferers in Auschwitz and in Birkenau. The Nazis envisaged the same fate for them as the Jews: they were to be extinguished from the face of the earth. It is precisely for this reason that Europe has the duty and the obligation to protect the Roma and to ensure they have equal opportunities in education and the equal right to a future that befits fellow human beings. We cannot allow this burning issue to sink back again into European silence within the expanse of a few weeks.”

back to overview

From left: Prof. Felix Kolmer, Reuven Rivlin, Noach Flug and Kazimierz Albin

Noach Flug, Shimon Peres and Christoph Heubner

Reuven Rivlin and Vice-President of the IAC, Christoph Heubner