“Aggressive war is evil.” Thus the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, visited Berlin, in his speech in the Bundestag on the occasion of the ‘National Day of Mourning’ ceremony, 80 years after the end of the Second World War. “Today it is a great honor for me to be here and take part in Germany’s National Day of Mourning. The deaths that we remember here, the deaths in the world due to the violence of conflict are of concern to each of us, if we want to be considered human.”
For the head of state, “the memory of human atrocities in the past and the deep suffering of them in the present compels us to exercise awareness. Peace is not a fixed goal, but rather the fruit of incessant efforts, based on the achievement of shared values and on the recognition of the inviolability of human life of everyone, everywhere. War always aims to project its dark shadow on humanity.”
“The lives of individuals, societies, nations are full of adversity and tragedy, sometimes due to individual choices, more often due to the deliberate actions of others. The First World War left at least 16 million people dead on the ground, half of them civilians, and twenty million people injured and maimed. But about people. Is it possible that all this can happen and is it expected to happen again? How many more deaths will it take before we stop viewing war as a tool for resolving disputes between countries?
“Nie wieder, never again, is the expression adopted in the international community to condemn the Jewish Holocaust – the Head of State recalled – Once again nie wieder is contrasted with wieder. This is what we are witnessing: war again, racism again, great inequality again, violence again, aggression again”.
