News Release
Romano Prodi
No. 11/04
January 30, 2004
EU COMMISSION PRESIDENT
ROMANO PRODI TO RECEIVE AWARD FROM RABBINICAL CENTER OF EUROPE
On February 2, 2004 EU Commission President Prodi will receive a humanitarian
achievement award from the Rabbinical Center of Europe for his ongoing efforts
throughout his administration to promote cultural dialogue and to protect the
rights of minorities, and for his engagement
with the diversity of cultures in Europe and of the Jewish community in particular,
as said by the organizers.
Prodi will also participate in the inauguration of the first European Jewish
Teacher's Academy established since World War II in Vienna. The famous pre-war
Jewish teacher's academy had been burned down during Kristallnacht in 1939. President
Prodi's presence at the inauguration has been considered by the Jewish community
in Austria as an important message from the President about the direction Europe
is taking towards the future of the Jewish Austrian community.
Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, will be present at the meeting and will
attend the event of the inauguration of the European Jewish Teacher's Academy.
Earlier this week, President Prodi proposed that January 27, the anniversary
of the liberation of
Auschwitz, should be commemorated.
“The twenty-seventh of January is the day on which the Auschwitz camp was
liberated in 1945, and it is the day on which we commemorate the Holocaust, the
persecution and extermination of the Jewish people.
“The remembrance of the Holocaust, a tragedy that stands alone and unparalleled,
has a universal value. Humanity has not ceased to stain itself with the crimes
of genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism. All men and
women of the Twenty-first century have a responsibility to combat and to prevent
these horrors.
“The significance of the Holocaust is still stronger in Europe. It is in
Europe that the Holocaust took place. Out of the lesson of the Holocaust the new
Europe was born, a united Europe, founded on respect for the human person, on
the rule of law and on freedom.
“Taking up was said in the declaration of the Stockholm Holocaust Forum
in January 2000, and the statement by the European ministers of education in October
2002, I would like to add my support for the proposal that a European Day of Remembrance
be set aside in each country, to be chosen in the light of its own history, in
order to remember the victims of the Holocaust and the struggle against all crimes
against humanity, and to pay homage to all those who, sometimes at the risk of
their own lives, have opposed and continue to oppose such horrendous deeds.”
