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In years to come visitors will enter this “Emek HaBacha”, the “Valley of Jewish Communities”, just to remember what our people lost during the cruelest of our tragedies, and they will weep as pious and learned Jews weep over the destruction of our Temple long ago. But then they will emerge and see the splendor and majesty of Jerusalem and they will smile, thinking, “Look at these visible and tangible memories we have maintained alive just as they have maintained our dream and ourselves alive”. Dr. Israel Singer, my friend, mentioned his town. Just behind me there is Buczacz. Buczacz – the place where Shai Agnon was born. Shai Agnon had a marvelous word in Stockholm when he received the Nobel Prize. He said, “Majesty, like all Jews I was born in Jerusalem, but then the Romans came and moved my cradle to Buczacz.” I would say, Avner Shalev and your friends, that there are many museums in the world, but the source is here. And I have worked for one museum at least, if not for two, many, many years, and nevertheless, in the city of Jerusalem I must tell the truth. And the truth is that this is the heart and this is the soul of Jewish memory.

What does one do with memory? Here we utter words that we cannot use anywhere else, just as there are certain prayers that you cannot pronounce anywhere else. Only in Jerusalem. Look at the stones. They are testimonies as are our lives, but “Who will be, who will bear witness for the witness,” asked Paul Celan, who lived in Paris and committed suicide. He wasn’t the only one. There were other writers who committed suicide. Especially writers, because they felt poor with words. Writers have nothing else but words, and they realized that there are no words for this tragedy. There are stones and there are people who come to be in these stones. The despair of these people who did commit suicide must serve as warning, which remains a pitiful part of our legacy which, good and cherished friends, you, scholars, teachers, historians, researchers, have tried to do for the last three days. You were here together at a very important conference and you found the way to go deeper and deeper into the dimensions of memory that had not been explored until now. You have done so with intelligence and passion, and its impact, the impact of the conference will be felt in many years and decades to come. In this unique place of memory, where the uniqueness of the Jewish tragedy is being preserved, we must therefore be truthful to ourselves and ask, “Will this be the last gathering?” When Zvi Gill came to see me that is what he meant, and I objected. There is no “last” for us. As long as there will be one survivor, it won’t be the last.

But who will be the last survivor? The last to tell the tale, saying, “I am the man” (Hebrew), as Yirmiyahu said. “I was there.” Who will be our witness? What will happen to our legacy? What happened to it already? You mentioned France, and France is so important to me. And in spite of the work that my friends, Serge and Beate are doing, in spite of the work that all of you are doing, I don’t know what is happening to that country. Anti-Semitism in France is gaining such an intensity now? Such violence? Burning synagogues? Causing Jews to feel threatened when they go into the street or wear a “kippa”? And what about Israel? The heart of our hearts, the dream of our dreams. Suicide killers murdering Jewish children and their parents and grandparents? For the first time in history Israel’s unwilling yet virulent resistance to the scourge of blind murder is being criticised, censured and slandered in so many places. What would they wish Israel to do? To give in to terror? And to give in to its fanatic priests, thirsty for Jewish blood and Jewish life? To some of us this day is very special. April 11th. April 11, 1945 was the liberation of Buchenwald. Naphtali Lavie and I remember that day – it’s our birthday, we say. I remember we were Jewish adolescents, all orphans, and we didn’t know what to do with our newly given freedom. Some of us formed a “minyan” and we recited the “kaddish”, the first “kaddish” as free Jews. And I think I thought this “kaddish” will never stop. It will last until we die, and in a way I was right. This “kaddish” is still in us and sometimes I wonder whether if in all my writings it is something else that I am doing, whether just to say “kaddish”. Often we feel weary and melancholy and close to despair, not only for the past, but also for the present. In other words, for what was done by so many on so many levels to the memory of our past. I am not referring to the professional Holocaust deniers. They don’t deserve the dignity of a debate. I refer to a Nobel Prize winner in literature, Saramago, who came here, who had the arrogance to come to tell Palestinians that what Israel is doing to them is what Germans have done to the Jews. Writers should first read before they write. But I also refer to all those who use their skill, movie-makers and all people from all fields who trivialize our tragedy. The authenticity of the tragedy is being lost to some of them.

But all of them together belong to a minority. In general terms we may judge the situation as more positive. Never before have there been so many events, so many academic conferences, so many chairs, so many books on the Holocaust. Its place in history can no longer be questioned. Could it be distorted? It could, but as long as Yad Vashem and its director and staff, very gifted and able staff, and their archives will be open to interested scholars and students, which means forever, “Ad bo haMashiach”, there will always be voices to correct innocent errors and willful misjudgements. They will be our heirs, our witnesses. They will be custodians of our memories, thus of legacy, your legacy, for whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness.

So what will the legacy be? First, maybe let us see what it has been for survivors. It was an attempt to remain human even in inhuman conditions. Even inside Auschwitz, these men and women were capable of courage, generosity and compassion. A piece of bread, a good word, a prayer on Shabbat. Or a smile. All those were enough to give strength to a fellow prisoner. After the war these survivors could have chosen nihilism, hedonism, violent revenge or just extreme selfishness. They could have said to the world, “We owe you nothing. We paid the price. We want to enjoy life now and to hell with you.” We could have said that. But instead, these survivors chose to emphasise hope and dignity. Some went back to their homes and became Communists. For good reasons then. They didn’t know what Stalin had done. Later they came to regret that. But many survivors came to Israel and built on the ruins of so many lives a new state, which celebrates dignity, celebrates honour and celebrates humanity, in spite of all what people say about Israel and the people of Israel. Our legacy is rooted in what we call “Ahavat Yisrael”, the love of Israel. Israel the State and Israel the People. No one loves Israel as a survivor does. No one. The legacy is that whatever happens to and in Jerusalem affects all Jews, wherever they may dwell, wherever they may live in fear or prosperity. When one community is threatened, all our people, the entire people, must mobilise its energies to rush to its aid. When one segment is slandered and one person is humiliated, we must all raise our voices in protest. From our experience we have learned that no Jew must ever feel alone and abandoned. A Jew alone is exposed to doubt and danger. Together, we know how to resist perils and above all, the peril of indifference. A Jew must never be indifferent to other Jews. We must never be quiet when Israel needs our voice.

Well, we must not be indifferent to other people’s suffering either. That, too, is part of our moral legacy. When people suffer from injustice, when they are victims of society or victims of destiny, we must not check their identity cards, but offer them our compassion. In other words, we must do for others what no one has done for us. Bring food for the hungry, a home for the homeless, conservation to the helpless and hope to the hopeless. We, who were forgotten by Creation and perhaps abandoned by its Creator, must demonstrate our faith in both. That faith preceded us and will follow us in history. We, who inside the barracks and the darkness saw all those leading to death, all endeavours dictated by the enemy, dominated by death, we still proclaim with every fibre of our being, our belief in the Jewish tradition, namely that everything about life is in life, be it frail and vulnerable. Ultimately, therefore, the question we had to face after liberation was, “What does one do with one’s memories and do with one’s suffering?” We could have used them as weapons to inflict suffering onto others, but we did not. Isn’t Israel a great triumph, if not the greatest obtained by our generation? I know there are those who might take issue with what I just said about our own way of making use of suffering. Many survivors came here from D.P. camps. Haven’t they made Palestinians suffer? That’s what the Palestinians say. My answer is simple. When survivors came here their goal was not to make them suffer. It was not to conquer lands that they came here for, lands that did not belong to the Palestinians, but they came home to live without fear. Today there is still fear in this land, sanctified by its eternal quest for peace. That, too, is part of our legacy. Maimonides wants us to play for peace among all nations. Even when they fight among themselves, somehow we happen to become their victims. Thus, we tell the world today and generations to come to learn from us, the last remnant of the bloodiest tragedy in recorded history. The memory of suffering and agony can and must be invoked so as to prevent further suffering and more agony. Faced with the memory of the moral blankness of the enemy, it is incumbent upon us to show greater sensitivity to ethical issues and challenges, and tell those who believe in death that that is not the way to fight for their cause. I cannot tell you enough, my good friends here, how perturbed I am, how worried I am, how dismayed I am that the world does not realized the danger of suicide bombings. I call them “suicide killers”. I cannot understand that. These are people who made death into a cult, death into a passion, death into a theology. They believe that they kill in the name of their god, and in doing so they don’t realize that they make their god into a killer. And the world refuses to understand that. And the world doesn’t realize that we have learned in history that whatever happens to us is usually a beginning. If we do not get the possibility here to fight, disarm and vanquish and uproot the suicide killers and their teachers, they, the world, will feel what we now feel here in this land, where young soldiers….where we see young soldiers – I see them on television – you see them, you, personally, here, going from funeral to funeral. Breaks my heart. When I see the “Hevra Kadisha” – I admire these men who, the moment it happens, they go there just to collect the “evarim”, pieces. How do they do that? Or when we think of the parents, their children….no. Something is wrong with the world again, which means we have a legacy. They have not learned from it yet. There is a “midrash” that “Eliyahu HaNevi” actually is going around the world with a bag and he collects tales of Jewish suffering. And when the “Mashiach” will come, the stories of that bag will become the new Torah from which G-d Himself will study and teach. I am sure that one place that He will visit day and night is this place.

My very dear and good friends, Israel is going through a difficult time. I hope you believe us, that we are so deeply with you, that maybe it will offer a moment or a spark of the fire that is still burning in us, for consolation and strength. Thank you.