Statement by David SASSOLI, President of the European Parliament during the Commemoration of the 77th anniversary of the Cibeno nazi massacre in Campo Fossoli (district of Carpi, Emilia-Romagna). This transcription is the result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

statement

Italy

SASSOLI, David Maria (S&D, IT, S&D, IT)

Holocaust remembrance (T)

World War II commemoration (T)

commemoration

Commemoration of the 77th anniversary of the Cibeno nazi massacre in Campo Fossoli: Statement by David SASSOLI, President of the European Parliament

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, I would like to greet the citizens of Carpi, the mayor, the families of the martyrs, the religious and civic organisations, the mayors of the cities where the martyrs came from, I would like to thank the representative of the Italian government, thank the president of Emilia-Romagna and thank in particular my friend, the president of the Fossili Foundation and of course, I would like to acknowledge the presence of our dear friend, Romano Prodi.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Thank you for having honoured me with the invitation to speak at this ceremony, which year after year enables us to remember to try and put that past in context, and particularly I wish to thank the president of the European Commission. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your words, your presence here today, Madam President.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Bears witness to how are institutions all have the responsibility of remembering and we know that Europe is the result of the most dreadful pain and moral degradation of societies that felt they were immune, and yet they spread horror and they failed to perceive the dangers of Nazism and fascism and how to forget the cry of those mothers who received one of the terrible news of a son who was no more.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, We hope that we will never again have to experience a war. Dear Úrsula, many citizens over the years have questioned us. What is Europe all about anyway? There's no such thing. And what's the point anyway? And then you come to a place like this. This is one of the thousands of places where we know that European culture reached this. You mean heights and then it's easy to answer. Well, of course, it is challenging to provide an adequate answer because clearly places like these echo with the voices of the innocent victims, the cry of freedom which was throttled when important leaders of the resistance movement were shot.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, We can imagine the faces of the deportees here in Fossoli. The hardships they experienced, the wondering in this camp. I've always been touched by that fixed gaze of victims, victims that cannot see the eyes of a human kind that has lost its humanity. And the gaze as those eyes are the same, we see them in every war in the lagger's, in all those who've been annihilated and deprived of their personality, we see that look in all those who struggle to survive and humiliated women.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And in those long lines of families that are escaping, lost children, those who drown and hang on for dear life. And yet through that, we can't forget the eyes of Mathausen and the eyes of Srebrenica and the eyes of the Syrian refugees or those mothers who attempt to reach a happiness that will never be given to them because of our indifference.And they are doomed to drowning.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, These are the eyes we see in the images of the victims and the prisoners, every time we lose freedom and every time we lose those rights and every time freedom and rights do not go hand in hand with justice.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Dear friends, my pilgrimage here today is due to one reason only to remember that we cannot think we are exempt from the horrors that we experienced, that were actually the result of great liberal progressive cultures, even in a time of great technological invention and discovery with many artists, men and women of letters, poets of philosophers, theologians, cosmopolitan figures with great minds.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And yet nobody understood in time the danger stemming from Nazism and fascism due to complicity, due to ineptitude. Those cultures were certain that it would never be possible to experience the overthrowing of the fundamental values of humanity and civilisation. And all of this, furthermore, was kindled by leaders who thought that it was possible to set aside peace, justice, equality, and those figures said, oh, that is something we will have to think about later because it wasn't the right time to do it.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And we have to be cautious, more democracy, more equality and justice. So, according to some, would have played in the hands of extremists and those who had violent attitudes. Dear Ursula, I say this today when with we were told that when we try and save migrants, we're playing into the hands of people smugglers or that there are expressions of disorder and it's best not to defend the dignity of people who want to love each other.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, When in Europe, unlike the rest of the world, these people have the right to do so. And we're criticised because of that, because here in Europe, here in Europe, people's rights and humanity are the measure of all things. In Fossoli, we know what happened, but this could happen again.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And that is why we must undertake to do what x, said a political leader, Monk, a member of the group that founded our republic. He was born not too far from here, and he said "we must undertake to preserve a keen historical awareness and conscience in order to remember events and avoid opportunism denial, but does to add something else or historical awareness or conscience. Persay is not enough. We must be vigilant.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, We must be ready to oppose any form of a system based on evil. And we have to stop this from happening, and that's why we can't let this happen again. That's why we're here with President von der LEYEN. To make this clear, we must never underestimate expressions of hatred, violence, discrimination that is expressed in parts of Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, But there is a sign of the times that gives us hope. We have learnt some lessons from the debate on the recovery and reconstruction of our economies very appropriately goes hand-in-hand with the debate on defending the rule of law from founding values and those freedoms that our citizens must be able to enjoy. And this is without precedent. It never happened, not even 10 years ago during the crisis, which affected Greece in particular, and then other parts of Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, That was a very limited attention paid to the rule of law. Now, rule of law has taken centre stage in the European political debate, and there has never been such a strong debate on the degenerative phenomena that we're seeing in certain states in Europe. There has never been such attention and now we have new mechanisms to sanction those responsible.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Why? Well, because without a very firm stand in support of our values, the risk is that Europe might lose its identity and its very function and there would be catastrophic effects if we were to focus, our attention. We must always stress that democracy is the best way of ensuring justice, well-being of our citizens. Failing that, we would no longer be able to protect ourselves against the interference of authoritarian regimes. Nor would we be able to make our identity clearly understood and respected at a time when Europe is something that is a source of aspiration in our debates and our polemic.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, We fail to recognise who we are and how many people really look to Europe as a source of inspiration, as an aspiration. And we fail to see how many look to us. In 70 years in Europe, we have created an inalienable link between individual and social freedoms. Losing all of this would mean plunging into the abyss.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Why do authoritarian regimes, all of them, express concern vis a vis Europe, we are not waging war, we don't even have an army, even though perhaps it might be a good idea, if nothing else, to save a little bit on our national defence budget. We are not trying to impose our model on anyone. We base our relations on dialogue. We're open and reach out to all. We try and act with democracy and diplomacy in the presence of conflict.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, So why are we a source of concern for some? There's only one reason. Because European values are an expression of freedom, and freedom brings equality, justice, transparency, opportunity and peace. And if this is possible in Europe, it is possible anywhere in the world.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, We want to overcome this crisis and I would like to make this very clear with more open societies, with more equality, with a concrete commitment in the fight against poverty, with a more functional democracy, focussing on the weak links in our fabric, women and young people. That is why we do not tolerate that in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, There are countries where, as President von der Leyen quite rightly said, the media or the judiciary are humiliated, in which an anti-Semitic wind forces Jewish families to leave Europe and move to Canada or the United States, a society in which refugees are considered as nobodies, in which women are underpaid, in which national laws and gender discrimination in which it is claimed that European territories are LGBT be free zones in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, The rights of each individual are common rights that belong to all. And when we talk about territories that are for some off limits, this reminds me of what happened in 1942 when the Nazis declared that Belgrade was the first "Juden Frei" City "free of Jews". We have learnt that it is customary to start with the minorities. That is always the case.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Remembrance, memory is part of our identity, our identity as citizens. We have succeeded and built our future and restore democracy and harmony and development. We have begun to build a new Europe looking up because we were able to stand on the shoulders of men and women who made terrible sacrifices and risk simply to express human solidarity towards those who were fleeing, men and women who did everything they could possibly do to bring an end to the war and to the Nazi fascist regimes.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Europe originates from that hope. United Europe was born in places like this, and the idea is that of a common good, which obviously underlies individual freedoms. And the Fossoli camp is certainly a civilian monument, but it is also a place that has changed on account of tragedies. After having been in concentration and a prison camp after the end of the Second World War, it changed and other colours came in.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And I'm referring to Nomadelfia and orphans that tore down the walls and created here, x, the city where brotherhood as law. There was no money, there was no unemployment. Men and women worked within the community without receiving wages because you cannot pay your brother or sister.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And the very concept of family was different from the most common idea of family here. And men and women had to. Consider all their children, including those that were not their biological children, they had to treat them as mothers and fathers would, and that was the idea of a family that is more than biology.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, The children in Nomadelfia described the family in their diaries in this way. Mother is not the one who gives birth to that is something that God gives mother is the figure who nourishes you and teaches you love. On the 12th of May 2018, pope Francis reminded us of Don Zeno. Don Zeno was able to identify a particular form of society where nobody is left alone, where all cooperate. Different families work together.And the members of these families think of the others as brothers and sisters. So there is a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood beyond blood ties, and that means sharing the same identity.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, The German philosopher Ernst Bloch had an exchange with the Jürgen Moltmann, an important Protestant thinker, and he influenced the theology of hope. And he wrote that there is never such a thing as A novem in history. Because there's always a dream or a promise that precedes it, the Europe of democracy and peace is a promise that was born with the liberation, with the liberation of Fossoli and the camps spread throughout Central Europe. But it was also the result of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which enabled our countries in the East to conquer freedom.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Europe is a work in progress. We will never stop building it. It cannot be because it is always a construction site, if you will, or a cathedral. And we know that it is necessary for subsequent generations to continue this building effort. And that is why we are determined to speed up the process of accession of countries in the Western Balkans and keep the promises made for the reconciliation of political and geographical spaces.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, The disappointment of Albania or northern Macedonia should not prevail, we don't want these to turn elsewhere. And the same is true of all those countries that are still keen to join our family.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, The pandemic brought us to a standstill not just in Europe but everywhere in the world. But Europe was not passive, as we've heard. It was not passive, as was the case a decade or so ago. Europe was able to make a special effort to move forward. It actually introduced a paradigmatic shift with a stronger and fairer Europe on the global scenario.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And in these difficult, painful, uncertain 16 months, we know that Europe is more than the institutions in Brussels. We are Europe. Europe is the result of our national parliaments, our national governments, our regions, because we've understood that we are all pieces in a puzzle. We're all bricks in this extraordinary venture. We should note, however be lulled into thinking that these are irreversible processes.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, In democracy, there are no easy wins, we need to implement new strategies, new policies, new common responsibilities. Democracy needs to be nourished continuously. It must be adjusted. Otherwise it can become dry and unloved and it can make room for instincts of anger or inward looking positions with the idea that an elite could find salvation in a fortress. We have to be a Europe that gives answers to its citizens, and it shouldn't be blocked by veto rights.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, This is an insurance on our future and at the moment we're faced with a truly historic responsibility. We want to bring to an end the more acute phase of this pandemic. And we want this Europe to develop sustainable, sustainably building united communities. We want to continue fighting poverty and really passing on the message of life to another generation that can be free to plan its future.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Really, there is something that unites us, that unites the innocent victims, the liberators, those who fought for the resistance and told us we are in the position of opening up a better future for our young people. This is our duty. Once this was only the illusion, the intuition, the vocation of bold and brave men and women. Today, we must recognise that you would have to be blind to deny that this is possible.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, Our only fate is Europe, a great contemporary think Edgard Morin, a few days ago turned hundred but he is tirelessly helping us to reflect. He says that our Europe is the result of the victory of humanism over barbarianism. He wrote: "it took the death of modern day Europe, the Second World War, The Nazi fire for this idea of a European birth.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And Morin continues, "with global markets for supranational powers, extraordinary. Opportunities coming from technology and science. Europe must pursue a new European humanism that it is its task. Unity in diversity and diversity and unity that is the foundation.".

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And this allows us to remember the martyrs of more than 5000 who left for Fossoli for concentration camps. They were the result of. A dreadful moment in history that saw the Holocaust, the massacre of Roma and Sinti, homosexuals. And after liberation, we witnessed the birth of a civilisation which is far from perfect, but was able to promote equal dignity, universal rights, growth, opportunity, welfare.

SOUNDBITE (Italian) David SASSOLI, EP President, And today it is a beacon and as admired by others all over the world. And this reminds us what our role is. We have to be sentinels for the future of our children. We cannot be blind to this because indifference breeds violence and we're already seeing violence, as Liliana Segre has reminded us, of inviting us to feel the pain of others. Because eachof us bears the traces of others, and it is only thus that we can honour the memory of those men and women on whose shoulders we were able to stand in order to enjoy a very different fate from this. Thank you.