On its 80th anniversary, today, the European Parliament marked the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. In her statement, the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola paid tribute to those who fell with the unwavering hope of resistance against tyranny.
Dear colleagues,
Today we remember. We remember the extraordinary bravery of ordinary people. People who stood up against the odds to light a spark in the darkest of times.
In 1940, Nazi commanders confined more than 400,000 Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto. They were targeted simply because they were Jewish.
By autumn 1942, 50,000 Jewish people remained in the so-called residual ghetto, including Bronisław Geremek, a former colleague of ours, who was just 11 years old.
On 19 April 1943, the Jews of Warsaw took up arms against the enemy. Starving women and men took on an army. They knew they could not win.
But the enduring symbol of resistance, the power of men and women standing up when there was nothing left to lose, remains an inspiration.
The April Uprising was the largest armed uprising of Jews during World War II.
In the words of Marek Edelman, who we just saw: “We weren’t stupid. We knew very well what we were up against”.
They did not go gently into the night. They raged against the dying of the light. And 80 years later they inspire us still.
Today, we pay tribute to those who fell with the unwavering hope of resistance against tyranny. With the belief in a lasting symbol of Jewish resistance against the Holocaust. Our Europe is built on their shoulders.
To mark this 80th anniversary, I urge all of you colleagues to wear a yellow daffodil. They are available at the entrance to the hemicycle.
They were donated by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. So that we should remember the power of resistance against death, autocracy, and dictatorship.
Thank you.
You can read the President's speech in Polish here.