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home > news > Monthly articles and events of interest
On Wednesday 27 June 2007 the Rabbinical Center of Europe (RCE) hosted an international conference on anti-Semitism at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Mister Natan Ramet, as an ancient deportee and survivor of the Shoah, was asked to discuss the situation in Belgium.
Honourable assembly of representatives of the European Community and of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very honoured to have been invited by the rabbinical centre of Europe to give a short aspect of today’s manifestations of anti-Semitism in Belgium.
I am a survivor of the Shoah, a witness and an observer. I did not choose this role but had it thrust on me in course of 34 long months spent in concentration and death camps. My wounds have healed but I still bear the scars and marks. I have met man and know how to recognize his attitude, reactions and ways; the barbarian and the friend, the murderer and the victim, the thief, the liar and the man with morality, the humanist and the egoist, the anti-Semite and the friend.
While still at school I learned to recognize intolerance, discrimination and anti-Semitism.
Memorial at Anderlecht The years following the liberation were difficult. Survivors remained silent wherever they ended up, simply because there was nobody to listen to them. They were speechless because they lacked the suitable words to relate what they had gone through. Language and tongue were inadequate to describe the incomprehensible. We discovered a silent or a crypto anti-Semitism, but with no exterior manifestations, except for me personally, some remains of hate by nazi nostalgics. What is special, is the context of theological anti-Semitism, which subsequently grew into an ethnic anti-Semitism, so characteristic in European history and which survives to this day. The teachings and theories of the nazi intolerance, fundamentalism and anti-Semitism still flourish in our society. Everything that we are now, has its roots in the past. Time is irreversible, once done, nothing can be undone… People must remember the past because they still need to take part in the future.
This is why I will try to describe today’s situation about manifestations of anti-Semitism and revisionism in Belgium.
From 1st of January 2006 to 31st of December 2006, 66 incidents were registered in Belgium. I will only quote a few of them. 30 incidents took place in Brussels, 10 in Antwerp, 1 in Beringen, 1 in Namur, 4 physical attacks were perpetrated on Antwerp Jews. Most of the victims were orthodox Jews… More and more anti-Semitic and revisionist graffitis and swastikas were painted on Jewish owned houses, synagogues etc…
The war in Lebanon on July and August 2006, has influenced the behaviour of the perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts; the crypt of the Memorial of Jewish Martyrs in Anderlecht, Brussels has been ransacked, and an urn with human ashes from Auschwitz-Birkenau has been emptied and thrown on the floor. There were anti-Semitic articles in the daily and weekly press, and worse of all, letters published from readers, some revisionist and some anti-Semitic. On the blog, insulting caricatures published in Iran etc… etc…
In an illustrated dictionary for scholars between 12 and 15 years under the word Jew, an insulting definition was used: “Jew: man of the land of Israel; crook, usurer, swindler, millions of Jews were gassed during WWII.”
I wish to come to a conclusion: Hatred, contempt, animosity, irritation, will not disappear; but today we have laws against racism and negation of the Holocaust; we can refer and protest at the “Center of equality of chances and against racism” who take steps against racist attacks, and in serious cases lodge a complaint in court. The ‘Forum of Jewish Organisation’ fixed a website www.antisemitisme.be, where you can obtain all information about anti-Semitic incidents.
A new law should be voted in Parliament, a law forbidding reunions of neo-nazis in the whole of Europe, which will reduce the manifestations of racism, intolerance, discriminations and anti-Semitism.
Memorial at AnderlechtBeing the Chairman of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance in Mechelen, whose documentation centre is a collection of sources and documentary evidence, I should like to inform you that about 33.000 youngsters, mostly from the last year of secondary classes, visit our Museum, and their reactions are positive, they understand not only what happened to Jews and Gypsies during WWII, but feel that they have often been misinformed about the Jewish identity. A few survivors are regularly invited to give a testimony in schools, and the reactions of the scholars are mostly positive.
I am very grateful when I visit schools or socio-cultural associations. I feel support, comprehension and sympathy towards our Jewish community.
The Museum is, and the future enlargement will be, subsidized by the Flemish Government, and we have the support of the Federal Government, for the Belgian Pavilion in Auschwitz.
The Minister of Education of the Flemish Government and the Minister of Education of the French Community, both have in their educational and didactic programs the annual visit of the Fort of Breendonk and the Kazerne Dossin.
Nearly all scholars above the age of 15, were invited to see ‘Schindler’s List’.
Honourable Rabbis, Ladies and Gentlemen, there is still hope if severe measures are taken by the European countries and ourselves.
Thank you so much for listening.
Natan Ramet, June 26th, 2007.
jmdv@telenet.be