Roberta METSOLA, EP President gives a statement during the plenary session in Strasbourg on the 80th anniversary of the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. A videoclip is also screened inside the hemicycle.

statement

Strasbourg

plenary session

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

EU - Poland (T)

president's agenda

80th anniversary of the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto: Statement by Roberta METSOLA, EP President

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, 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 commandos confined more than 400,000 Jews into the Warsaw ghetto. They were targeted simply because they were Jewish.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, By autumn 1942, 50,000 Jewish people remained in the so-called residual ghetto, including Bronisław Geremek, a former colleague of ours in this house who was just 11 years old. On 19th of April 1943, the Jews of Warsaw took up arms against the enemy, starving women and when 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.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, The April uprising was the largest armed uprising of Jews during the Second World War. In the words of Marek Edelman, who we just saw: "We were in 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.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, So, 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.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, And to mark this 80th anniversary, I urge all of you, colleagues, team members, to wear a yellow daffodil. They are available at the entrance to this 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. So, please join me in rising for a moment of silence as we remember them. Thank you.