Discurso de la ministra de Educación y Ciencia, Mercedes Cabrera. English Version.

Next week, 30 January, sees the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Hitler’s coming to power. It was a day that marked the beginning of the blackest period in European history. That same year, the German government passed the first laws aimed at excluding Jews from public life. Five years later, in 1938, the Nazis launched their military expansion in Europe, a move which was to lead to the outbreak of World War II.

Under the pretext of war, the Third Reich implemented a policy for the methodical and calculated extermination of Jews throughout Europe. A policy that saw six million Jews murdered. That massacre, that systematic desire to exterminate, is what is known today as the Holocaust.

Although the war ended in 1945, the Holocaust remains an open wound in Europe’s heart. A stigma in the heart of humanity that reminds us of our obligation to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.

Never again.

Hence our obligation to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.

Today we know what happened and the story can be told thanks to the work of the historians who have devoted their time and efforts to researching the Holocaust and thanks also to the testimony of the survivors of the massacre, who have passed to us on their experiences, their suffering.

The testimony of the survivors has been crucial to understanding what really happened. To forming a perception that transcends the simple recognition of objective facts.

But the numbers of Holocaust survivors are falling and we must therefore ask the same question that Settimia Spizzichino, an Auschwitz survivor, asked herself: ‘What will happen when we are no longer around? Will the memory of such infamy be lost?’

It is our duty - the duty of us all, including governments- to transmit to future generations what we know about the Holocaust, about this singular event in the history of humanity. We need to work to preserve the memory of such barbarity. And that means we must make an effort in schools to educate our children so that Auschwitz can never be repeated.

For that reason also we need to continue to promote historical research on the Holocaust. We have to include Holocaust teaching in the school curriculum, in the education of our young people. Spain has already done a considerable amount in that respect. Last year, during this same Commemoration, I promised that specific reference to the Holocaust would be included in the Contemporary World History syllabus at Baccalaureate level. That is now a reality. In addition, at compulsory secondary level, the subjects of Education for Citizenship and Social Sciences, Geography and History include critical reflection on anti-Semitism and genocides.

That in itself may not be sufficient. The inclusion of the Holocaust on the school curriculum is necessary but not enough. Now that the survivors are passing away we must fight to ensure the Holocaust does not become a mere event in history, like others. A set of chronologically-ordered events, like the Napoleonic Wars or the invasions by the Barbarians.

That is the great challenge we face today.

Thank you.