Bishop Teemu Laajasalo’s speech at the Yom Hashoah ceremony at the Jewish Congregation of Helsinki
Your Excellencies, Honourable Chair, Dear Friends,
Thank you for inviting me to this event. There are many here who have been cherished friends for decades. As you all know, I value our links.
The Holocaust is not merely a dark chapter in history. It is a wound that reminds us of what the human being is capable when human dignity is denied, when fear and hatred consume us, and when others cease to be our neighbours. It is a unique chapter of history. People have always been murdered, but it is the Holocaust’s industrial scale that makes it unique.
We don’t just remember the past today. We remember people – names, faces, families, stories. The people of this community. We must bear them in our minds and in our memories.
A bishop and Christian must also bear another kind of responsibility. The history of the Lutheran Church in Europe is not free of antisemitism. Too often the Christian church has failed to defend Jews when we should have. We cannot avoid this truth – and nor should we.
So remembrance isn’t just about looking back at the past. Antisemitism has not vanished from the world. It lives on in words, attitudes and deeds – sometimes subtle, sometimes overt. So our task is not only to remember but to act.
As Christians, we recognise our Jewish roots. Without the Jewish people, without the Jewish scriptures, without Jewish history our faith would not exist. We are not separate – we are tightly connected.
So I want to say this clearly today: Jews cannot be abandoned. The rest of us must stand with you – in grief, in remembrance and in hope. We must commit ourselves to opposing all hatred, all discrimination and all violence against Jews. We must commit ourselves to listening to Jewish voices when Jews recognise antisemitism and we do not.
Today we can all pray that this occasion and our remembrance will inspire us to be courageous – courageous in defending human dignity, courageous in addressing injustice, courageous in building a world where this evil will never happen again.
May the victims’ memory be a blessing.