MINISTER OF DEFENCE DAG JOSTEIN FJÆRVOLL

Opening address to the international sachsenhausen committee in the Oslo City Hall, 15th May 1998

Dear veterans,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is a great pleasure for me to salute the veterans of 18 nations. Considering the hardship you suffered in younger days, it is amazing to see how vigorous you now look. Someone said to me that this may be the last gathering of the Sachsenhausen veterans. I am not so certain about that. Let's hope I will be able to attend the next conference, too. If I stay that long in position, that is.

I am informed that the Brandenburg Memorial Sites Foundation, which preserves the Sachsenhausen camp, says that the existing state and federal government funding only covers just over half the cost of the maintenance necessary to keep the camp open as an educational and memorial site. I am sorry to hear this.

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp has a special place in the history of Norway during the Second World War. More than 2 400 Norwegians were sent to that camp. Among them were two future Prime Ministers and maybe our most famous poet at that time. The inmates of Sachsenhausen were some of our best. About 250 of them never came home – they perished along with millions of others in the concentration camps of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi-regime.

It is sad to see that nazism still has the ability to rouse bewildered youngsters. On Sunday it is the 17th of May, our National Day here in Norway. We do not celebrate it with a military parade, but with cheering children walking in the streets. It is a tradition that we Norwegians are immensely proud of. But in the streets of Oslo others will march, too. The neo-Nazis are said to be planning a rally here on Sunday. Of course, they are just a small group without any political influence. But they have friends in almost every country in Europe. Among the unemployed, in the schools and at the universities. Even some so-called historians, like David Irving, denounce the facts of the horrors you all experienced. That is frightening.

The only way to prevent that these forces once again will rise to power, is to keep the memory alive. Like Elie Wiesel has pointed out: The danger lies in indifference.

It is therefore vital to keep the Sachsenhausen museum. Not as a monument over German atrocities. Not primarily to remember the cruel events of yesteryear. But to use it as a reminder for future generations. Let us show them how a modern society could transform into the world's most evil empire. Let us show them what dictatorship may bring. Let the evidence of the concentration camps be the shield of democracy.

I wish you all the best for the conference and hope that your stay here in Oslo will be as pleasant as you all deserve.

Thank you very much.