ADDRESS

Delivered at the plenary by the President of the National Assembly Tsetska Tsacheva on occasion of the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

Honorable Colleagues,

Yesterday the world has marked the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. This year Europe observes the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp of Auschwitz.

I believe, all of you will agree, that at present it is particularly important to turn our thoughts and feelings towards the millions of innocent people, who had perished as a result of one delusional, racist theory, which was placing some humans above others, which was cultivating ethnic, religious and ideological hatred.

Turning again to the atrocities of the past is particularly important today. We see how fanaticism, disagreements and aspirations towards hegemony are surfacing in some parts of the world; in some close to us parts of the world. And the natural question coming to mind is how are we to live in the future, what is the world going to be?

Our state is located at a crossroad. It has been run over by invaders but invariably enriched by the waves of the cultures which had passed through. Living on a crossroad has thought us – and we know it – to interact despite the differences.

There is much talk going on about tolerance. We are obliged to repeat again that not like in other lands, in ours tolerance exists since times immemorial. Here it has become a key to the communication.

Interacting with and comprehension of the other is the only explanation of the most important and glorious event in the Twentieth century history of Bulgaria – the rescue of Bulgarian Jews during the Second World War.

The compassion towards the fate of our Jewish compatriots at the time was an expression of the existing relations of understanding allowing Christian priests to invite the Rabbi or the Hodge as guests to religious holidays and vice versa the Rabbi or Hodge to invite their Christian colleagues at Jewish or Muslim holidays.

Let us not forget these qualities of Bulgarians – to communicate, to interact, to understand. Let us develop and cultivate these qualities in the coming generations.