On behalf of the State of Israel, he thanked the Government of Macedonia and Premier Nikola Gruevski for returning Jewish assets and for building the memorial center.
"This is a significant achievement of the Government of Macedonia, which is one of the first countries that have completed the restitution of Jewish properties - an act that immortalizes the memory of murdered Jews. The initiative to establish a place to remember the 7.148 Jews that once were part of the successful Jewish community and to educate people on vital lessons is a paramount achievement," Ya'alon said.
"My moral judgement has told me that a way must be found to remember that people had lived here, our fellow citizens who had shared good and bad with us, who had worked honorably and acquired property, which had been illegally taken away from them. Regardless, they have the posthumous right to that property, gained with hard work and sacrifices. The government, in which I served as a minister, accepted the idea by denationalising their property, which had no legal heirs, to create a fund and build a memorial center - a building which on one hand will observe, connect and create fresh values and on the other will acknowledge the labour and property of our fellow citizens, the Jews," Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski stated.
"We have built to recall, to observe and to pledge - remember in order not to happen ever again," said Gruevski who lit the eternal flame for the Jews from Macedonia at the entrance of the Memorial Center.
President of the Holocaust Fund for the Jews from Macedonia, Liljana Mizrahi said Macedonia was the only country in the world to adopt a law on denationalization with special provisions establishing a fund from the assets of those who perished in Nazi concentration camps and have no heirs and whose properties remained in state's ownership as a result.
President of the Jewish Community in Macedonia, Bjanka Subotic spoke about the Jews' presence in this region, which spans several centuries, who managed to establish close ties with the Macedonian people creating a common history, culture and values and fighting together for free Macedonia.
"Holocaust generations are slowly disappearing. We, their successors, do everything in our power to remember and collect all the information that is left about the period of this horrible suffering of these people," Subotic said.
The ceremony of the official opening started with the arrival of three ash urns from the victims of Treblinka, whose eternal resting place will be in the Memorial Center.
A permanent exhibition displaying in-depth the long history of Jewish life in the Balkans, will be opened in the Memorial Center, located in the so called Jewish neighborhood in Skopje.
A declaration of peace, tolerance and inter-religious acceptance, adopted at Wednesday's forum or religious heads, was read at the opening. It will be sent to all international organisations and religious institutions. The ceremony ended with Jewish prayers Kaddish and El Rachamim.
In addition to a number of guests from Macedonia and abroad, the opening was also attended by the presidents of Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro - Gjorge Ivanov, Bamir Topi and Filip Vujanovic respectively - a member of the Knesset, religious heads and representatives of the diplomatic corps. ba/fd/14:28
