Ladies and gentlemen.

There is a very specific reason why I am standing here today. And that reason is:

It was an Austrian. 

Arthur Seyß-Inquart, Nazi-Governor of the Netherlands, was an Austrian.

It was an Austrian, who ordered the deportation of over 100,000 Jews from the Netherlands to Nazi extermination camps.

It was an Austrian, who enslaved half a million people from the Netherlands and sent them to Germany for forced labour.

An Austrian, who had people here in the Netherlands persecuted, tortured and killed.

It was someone from our, from the Austrian society. Austria therefore bears a special responsibility.

I stand here before you with a special responsibility.

This responsibility means that it is not enough to say: "Never again." We must live up to these words. By not allowing that people are insulted,  because they wear a necklace with the Star of David. That people are attacked, because they speak Hebrew. That Jewish children have to be afraid on their way to school.

By standing up resolutely and out of the deepest conviction against all forms of anti-Semitism and hatred.

Only then will we live up to the words "Never again".

Only then will we live up to our everlasting responsibility.

Only then will we do justice to the memory of the victims of the Shoah.

The National Holocaust Museum was created to keep the memory of the horrors of Nazi terror alive. Because far too often we underestimate how inhuman human beings can be. This place reminds us of that.

Far too often we forget, to raise our voice  when a person's dignity is violated. This place reminds us of that.

This place wakes us up.

Thank you, for creating the National Holocaust Museum.

We need it.