The Minister of Defense published a last-minute announcement with a strong message for millions of Romanians throughout the country, a message that should reach the attention of all people because it talks about the horrors committed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
The Minister of Defense talks below about the Holocaust, the way it affected the whole of Europe, but also many other areas of the world, but separately he talks about the National Strategy for preventing and combating anti-Semitism, xenophobia, radicalization and inciting speech, plus the National History Museum of Jews and the Holocaust in Romania.
"At the end of the Second World War, the horrors committed by the Nazi regime, through Hitler's program of racial purification and the extermination of European Jews and other minorities, would be revealed to public opinion.
Thus, a dramatic page was written in the history of mankind. The pain of the dead and those left alive, marked forever by the suffering endured, but also the pain of today's generations, who cannot understand how such crimes were possible. We can turn this pain, collectively, into a day of hope - that humanity will never know such horrors again. And our children will live in peaceful times and in harmony.
In 2021, Romania implemented the National Strategy for the prevention and combating of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, radicalization and hate speech, related to the period 2021-2023, as well as the associated Action Plan. Government specialists are working on an extensive process of revising Holocaust education curricula, as well as updating training programs for teachers, professors and instructors who teach about the Holocaust.
Also, the establishment of the National Museum of the History of the Jews and the Holocaust in Romania is getting closer to becoming a reality, the last few days the financing contract was signed through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). We are all obliged, at the level of state institutions, as well as as citizens of Romania, to act so that the horrors of the Holocaust are never forgotten and are never possible again.
Active and systematic measures to prevent, combat and sanction radicalization and hate speech, as well as any forms of denial and distortion of the Holocaust, anti-Semitic and xenophobic manifestations and all forms of intolerance are part of this transformative process.
Yes, we must have the courage to assume with dignity the errors of the past and those of the present because only in this way can we preserve our humanity and save our national soul. We must not forget, we have no right to do so, therefore we must have the power to separate the positive myths of the nation from the mythologies that can push us down the wrong paths again. In the name of the Ministry of National Defense and in my personal name, I paid a pious tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, in whose memory we lit the candles of humanity today."
