Speech by the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz at the official opening of the exhibition "Routes of Liberation: European Legacies of the Second World War"

Dear Prime Minister Rutte,

Dear Professor de Graaf

Dear Ms van Krieken,

Dear Friends,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure and an honour to be here with you today for the opening of this exhibition. The European Parliament has been a strong supporter of the Liberation Route Europe Foundation since its inception. The work, passion and dedication in the work of all those who made this event possible is truly exemplary. Each country experienced its liberation in a different way, it was a truly multi-national liberation yet national characteristics stood out, the exhibition highlights these two complementary elements.

I have just come back from an official visit to the Middle East. In Israel, I visited the Yad Vashem, the official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The name "Yad Vashem" is taken from the book of Isaiah and means "a place and a name". A place and a name which shall never be forgotten. Standing underneath the hundreds of staring eyes of the innocent victims of the Hall of Names was an emotional and humbling moment, but also a deeply instructive one.

Nazi ideology and fascism have left a permanent scar on Europe's consciousness, a scar that we cannot and should not erase. We cannot understand the meaning of the "liberation" without thinking of the horrors of totalitarianism, of the brutality of occupation, of Hongerwinter, of Oradour-sur-Glane, of Sant'Anna of Stazzema or of the Warsaw Ghetto. Today's exhibition also tactfully reminds that for the other half of Europe, liberation only meant the beginning of another form of occupation.

This exhibition greatly contributes to maintaining the memory of liberation alive and I thank all those who helped realising it. I am particularly supportive of this project for three reasons.

Firstly, I am personally and emotionally attached to the path through which the original project of Liberation Route runs. I was born close to the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. Some of my ancestors had served in Belgian and Dutch forces. I call this area the "golden triangle" of Europeanism: this is because people here today know all too well the meaning of borders, of the borders that divide, and of borders that were the magnet of the lust of armies. The Liberation Route is a continuation of a tradition which unites memory and Europeanism, which is peculiar to this land.

Secondly, I am a supporter of the Liberation Route because it brings memory to life. It does not consign history to a museum, but it makes it dynamic, it makes it something that you can touch, hear and see. Thanks to the Liberation Route people will be able to understand the magnitude of Operation Market Garden, feel the hope of the local population in the parachuting of the Allied forces, the courage of the soldiers and the concerns of the generals. People will be able to measure the distance between key places of the liberation such as Arnhem, Oosterbeek and Nijmegen. They will look at the width of the Rhine and value its strategic and tactical importance. There is no better way to learn history than to live through it. The Liberation Route Europe does exactly that.

Thirdly, I support the project methodologically as it aims, I cite, to construct a "multinational perspective on war, liberation and remembrance". This is an aim we share in the European Parliament. This is also what we are trying to achieve with the creation of the House of European History, a cultural institution and exhibition centre which aims to marshal all available means to promote a better understanding of European history and European integration. The objective is not to impose a European viewpoint, but to create a European debate.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It might not come to you as a surprise, but I believe that in history, as much as in politics, conservatism is not the solution.

Prime Minister Rutte and I might at times disagree on what are the best solutions to make Europe fit for the future, but we both share an unshakeable conviction that the best way to protect our common project is to innovate it.

We both know that Europe is not just about conserving the achievements which we so hardly fought for: democracy, social security, health-care, labour rights and the rule of law. Europe is also about debating how to make these achievements fit for the XXI century, rather than retrenching behind a wall of perceived security and comfort.

The same goes for European history, we should never stop nourishing our history and memory. We should never let it to rest. We should never take an interpretation as wholly just. We should continue to debate it, question it, dissect it and spread it.

I would like to conclude with a quote by Albert Camus, from the book "The Rebel". With his usual optimism, Camus stated that "in the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent - he continues it."

Nevertheless, let me add, man would be wholly guilty, if he started to forget it.

That is why I thank the organisers of the Routes of Liberations exhibition and the participants of this event, not just to help us keep memory alive, but also to make it lively.