International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in European Parliament marred by incident

A solemn ceremony marking International Holocasut Remembrance Day in the plenary sitting of the European Parliament in brussels was marred by a incident when a far-right Polish MEP started shouting "Let’s pray for the victims of the Jewish genocide in Gaza," writes Yossi Lempkowicz, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.

While the assembly was observing a minute’s silence for the six million Jews exterminated by the Nazis, the MEP, Grezegor Braun, a member of the Confederation of the Polish Crown party, again shouted : "Thank you for praying for the victilms of the Jewish genocide in Gaza."

Then, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola asked the MEP to leave the room and apologized to the crowd, before the ceremony ended with a musical performance of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the deceased, by Maurice Ravel.

President Metsola opened the ceremony, which also marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp on 27 January, with the words : "We can never forget and we must act."

"Ours is the last generation to have the privilege of knowing Holocaust survivors, and hearing their stories first-hand. Their voices, their courage, their memories are a bridge to a past that must never be forgotten."

She added that even after the horrors of the Holocaust, "antisemitism did not disappear. It persisted. It evolved".

She stressed that "memory is a duty, a responsibility to ensure that ‘never again’ is not an empty promise.This European Parliament will always remember. And we will always speak up – just as our first woman President Simone Veil, herself a survivor, taught us to do. Her legacy reminds us that neutrality helps only the oppressor, never the victim. This Parliament will always stand for dignity. For hope. For humanity”, Metsola added.

Corrie Hermann, daughter of Hungarian cellist and Holocaust victim Pál Hermann, addressed the MEPs and shared the story of how her father, considered as one of the finest cellists of his time, was murdered by the Nazis in 1944. “This story about one Holocaust victim is dedicated to every one of the six million victims whom we deplore today,” she said.

She recounted her father’s life as a musician, from his education at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest to performing on Europe’s most prestigious stages. After fleeing to Belgium and France, he was arrested in Toulouse in a street raid in April 1944, and transported to Drancy the camp near Paris from where the transports for the concentration camps departed. From there he was deported to the Kaunas concentration camp in Lithuania. While the train was waiting at the station, he managed to throw a note from the train, asking for his Gagliano cello to be saved. The note was found and sent to his brother-in-law, who replaced the Gagliano with a lesser instrument and escaped with the cello strapped to his back. “We don’t know what happened next, but only a handful of the 900 prisoners returned after the war,” she recalled.

Despite his tragic fate, Hermann’s music continues to inspire people across the world. Over 80 years after his death, his Gagliano cello was rediscovered and his compositions have been performed by renowned international artists. “Hitler burned books, destroyed paintings, and murdered millions; but music is invincible,” Corrie Hermann said.

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