“Within living memory, two of the most evil empires in history came to power and began to drown a continent in blood.

“In peace as in war, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia launched slaughter on a horrific scale — from concentration camps and gulags to factories and collective farms, to the biggest cities and smallest villages.

“Today, their tens of millions of victims are linked to places and names still resonant with horror. Auschwitz. Katyn. Oradour-sur-Glane. Holodomor and the Holocaust.

“It’s up to us to preserve the memory of the bloodshed, by honouring the slain and condemning their killers with the light of truth. Today, we remember this duty.”