The Second World War lasted almost six years and was one of the most brutal episodes in world history. The ideology and racial considerations that brought the world to war resulted in the slaughter of almost 50 million people. The Holocaust was the biggest of the killing programs and was targeted not merely for terror and repression but for complete extinction. As the war progressed so did the development of the military forces, the Underground’s and the heroism showing the contrast between pure evil and the purity shown by the Righteous Among Nations.
LIONS International acting under their banner of freedom seeks to recognize and meet the needs of their communities, a concept of humanity that was absent during World War II. Our organization encourages international cooperation and understanding. We plan to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II with an educational seminar to stress the importance of the existence of LIONS International.
With this in mind we are initiating a LIONS World Conference in Poland in the year 2005. The conference will include visits to sites that were home and legacy to many people for tens of decades and were turned during the war years into mass graves and extermination centers. Here we will visit, remember and mourn for the victims. Following the visits there will be academic seminars to discuss and study the moral lessons to be learned from this period of our history.
We Lions members of Israel have invited you to participate in this emotional and intellectual experience that to take place on November 7 2005 in Poland.
LIONS International considers as one of its missions, that May 8th 1945 will not only be remembered as the day that the Second World War ended, but also as a warning that despite Victory winning over evil, we have still not found peace or safety and we are still in the grip of dangers which may prove to be even worse that the ones we have survived.
Shimshon Marron
District Governor 2005/6
Dis. 128 (Israel)
SPEECH AT THE AUSCHWITZ CEREMONY 7.11.05
Shimshom Marron – District Governor D-128 ISRAEL
With a heart full of emotion, as a son of holocaust survivors, and as the District Governor of Lions Israel standing before you on this special occasion, I speak to you members of Lions Poland, Germany, Israel and our guests Lions fromn other different countries.
60 years ago the world discovered in shock the biggest cemetery that humanity has ever seen here at this terrible place. More than
one and a half million human beings were destroyed here. Most of them were gassed to death within minutes of their arrival here for the sole reason that they were Jews. Within moments of the selection process which sealed their fates were sealed. I have asked myself what all these murdered people could have achieved – the philosophers, the artists, the scientists, and the ordinary human beings. I have wondered in awe about what was lost to the world by the untimely killing of so many people, snuffing out their potential in such a mad inhuman way. We will never stop thinking about them.
The people arrived here and were immediately turned into mere objects and were catalogued with numbers that were burned into their arms. The murders that were carried out here stem from insane racism with the mad intention to commit genocide – to totally annihilate all the people of our nation. The attempt to destroy an entire people hovers like a dark, ominous shadow over the entire world. For the sake of our children - - for the sake of our future - this dark cloud must not be allowed to dissipate - - this dark cloud must not be forgotten! - lest it happens again. The collective memory of our people is etched in the blood of the innocent people who were butchered here and will remain with us forever.
This concentration camp was established in the year 1940. It's technical organization excelled and it was constantly improved by the Nazi scientists to facilitate the industry-like process of killing masses of people. At the opening in 1940 hundreds of thousands of Polish people, of all statuses from simple people to philosophers and the elite, were brought here. Among them was Joseph Tsirankevitz who later became Prime Minister of Poland and who permitted the emigration to Israel of the remains of Polish Jewry at the beginning of the 1950's. We also remember the people of other nationalities who were murdered here - - the Russians, the Gypsies, and the people who did not match the Nazi definition of the "pure race."
Auschwitz is not just a place to remember and to think about the people killed here - Auschwitz today is the conscience of the world; Auschwitz is humanity's compass -guiding it in its war against racism and anti-Semitism which we are now again witnessing in various places in the world. All of us belong to a human society which regards itself as enlightened.
We, members of Lions, by being here today, represent, and serve as a symbol for, the compass of the world; for the desire to change the world for the better; seeking to ensure that the terrible suffering witnessed here will never be repeated; hoping that the terrible suffering and hatred (omit - that was) so efficiently planned and programmed that it gave rise to places like Auschwitz, will remain only as a chapter in history that will never ever be forgotten and never ever happen again.
Georg Kuropka – District Governor D-111OW GERMANY
Dear Excellences, dear lions, dear young people, dear guests,
Just my address could fulfil the time I have to speek to you. This is why I ask for your understanding for choosing the short version.
Today we came together here in the foreign German concentration camp Auschwitz to remind the victims being killed and murdered in the darkest period of the 20. century in Europe. And to remind also to their families mourning for their beloved relatives.
My heart is full of shame because of the terrible things happened during the system of the national socialism.
We have the only possibility to think of them with and in our prayers.
What can be our task to do it?
On January 27th in 1996 the day of January 27th became a yearly day to think and commemorate of all the victims initiated by the former German President Roman Herzog who is very honoured by myself.
In the proclamation it is called: In 1950 the 50th time we had the end of World War II. and the national socialism. This year we have a special way to commemorate the victims of murdering and the millions of these people beeing without any rights, pursuited, tormented and murdered.
As a big symbol for this terror there is the former concentration camp Auschwitz, being rescued on January 27th in 1945. In Auschwitz you could find especially persons who should be killed according by
plan by the national socialism or who should be killed in the future: Jews from many countries, soviet prisoners of war, Gipsy, Chzechoslovaks, Yugoslavs, the French, Austrians, Germans and relatives of other people and nations. The remembrance of it may not end; it has to admonish the coming generations to be watchful.
That is why it is important to find a kind of remembrance being effective for the future. It may show the sorrow about suffering at all, being dedicated to the commemoration of the victims and work hard
against every danger of repetition.
Dear Sir or Madams, exactly since this day - January 27th in 1996 - I am organizing every year the day of memories in our county in Saxony-Anhalt.
That is why I invited the children‘s and youth choir from Leipzig/ Grünau to take part in this event and perform the children`s opera BRUNDIBAR for us. Surely you will wonder why there is such a big
amount of children for the performance today who came as far as here for us. The reason therefore is that in Theresienstadt a lot of children had to study the roles of the opera because no one knew who would be living at the day of the performance. The children from today will assume the voice of the children from that time, they will sing and talk for them and commemorate them with it.
For me it is one of the most important tasks of life to call the attention of our youth to this time that may never be forgotten.
This day`s day may be a real order for us to work for it that our children and grandchildren comprehend each others as friends – without any hints to their ancestors and the contemptible behaviour of the national socialism.
Let us have the Lions idea WE WERVE on this November 7th in 2005 as a day of reconciliation and
hope for us and our children.
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