In moving speech, Duterte reprises Holocaust slogan ‘never again’

Update

JERUSALEM – “Never again.”

President Rodrigo Duterte said this on Monday to add his voice to the worldwide condemnation of the murder of six million Jews in Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust during his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center here.

“May the world learn the lesson of this horrific and benighted period of human history,” he said in his signed dedication on the guestbook, which he read before the media, after visiting the Children’s Memorial inside Yad Vashem with his daughter Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte. They both laid a wreath to remember the children that perished during the Holocaust.

“May the hearts of peoples around the world remain ever open. And may the mind of all men and women learn to work together towards providing a safe haven for all who are being persecuted,” he added.

Duterte, the first Philippine President to set foot on the Holocaust Memorial here, also paid tribute to the Jews who fell victims to Hitler’s cruelty by visiting the Hall of Names inside the Yad Vashem with daughter Sara.

“Well I would like to thank Israel, the government and the people for inviting us here to see for ourselves in visuals what we have read time and again in our history books,” he said.

“We know the brutal and cruel journey of the Israelites. From one scattered generation finally finding their place under the sun. We are happy that…witnesses to this event,” he added.

Duterte said war, which always results in the death of many, “is insanity.”

“Me, I realized that war is insanity. And what happened here, in Europe, especially under the Nazi,” he said.

“I could not imagine of a country obey an insane leader. And I could not ever fathom the spectacle of a human being going into a killing spree, murdering old men, women, men, children, mother,” he added.

The President hoped that the Holocaust should not happen again.

“I hope that this will not happen again. But we are a world… We have learned so much [over] the years during the two wars. There is always a lesson to be learned and that despots and leaders who show insanity should be — well they should be disposed of at the first instance,” he said.

“I would like to say that we are one in saying that it will not happen again and my country will be the first to voice such [opposition to] a massacre of a race just because of hate,” he added./kga/ac