LETTER FROM THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION DATED 14 MARCH 2011

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Office of the Vice-President Viviane Reding

Justice, Rights and Citizenship

The Chief of Staff

Brussels, March 14, 2011

MS / MSH / fm 234410

Mr Didier BERTIN 

Sir, 

On behalf of Madam Vice-President Viviane Reding, I thank you for your letter dated of 25 February 2011 in reply to my letter of 22 February 2011. In your letter you refer to the importance of the Holocaust. 

I can only share your opinion on this point and I remind you that the report of the European Commission dated of December 22, 2010 "The memory of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in Europe" clearly expresses the will of the European Commission to use its programs to help interested parties to safeguard and promote the memory of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes, including the crimes of Nazism.  

Among these programs, the report of the European Commission refers first to the program "Europe for Citizens out of which Action 4" Active European Remembrance,” aims to maintain the memory of victims of Nazism and Stalinism and to improve the knowledge of what happened in the camps and other places of mass extermination of civilians. This action supports projects whose target is to preserve the main sites and memorials associated with mass deportations, the former concentration camps and other sites of martyrdom and mass exterminations of Nazism as well as the archives documenting these events and keeping alive the memory of the victims, and also the memory of those who in extreme conditions, rescued people from the Holocaust.

Yours sincerely

Martin Selmayr