Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and pay tribute to the Government of Macedonia and the Jewish community and Holocaust fund of the Republic of Macedonia for their joint initiative, under the patronage of President Dr. Gjorge Ivanov, in inaugurating today a Holocaust Memorial Centre.
This centre will serve as a lasting memory to the 7,148 Jews from Macedonia who perished in the Shoah, onto each person there will be a name, an identity, reminding us that if someone saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.
The Holocaust Memorial Centre will also bear witness to the long history of Macedonian and Balkan Jewry while promoting inter-religious and inter-ethnic understanding and co-operation in the region and beyond.
So, we members of this House join with them a common pledge: that never again will we be indifferent to racism and anti-Semitism; never again will we be silent in the face of evil; that we are each, wherever we are, in Macedonia or Canada, the guarantors of each other's destiny.