Jerusalem, Israel
[Provisional Translation]

Allow me to convey the great respect I feel from the bottom of my heart for the efforts you have made in working to pass on to future generations the hardships the Jewish people endured, as a legacy of all humankind.

I felt great solemnity in the face of your forefathers, who overcame profound grief to found the nation of Israel.
 
Today, I have learned how much merciless humans can be bysingling out a group of people and making that group theobject of discrimination and hatred. In March, last year, I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Today, I find myself fully determined: Ha-sho'a le'olam lo od. The Holocaust, never again.

Among our forefathers was a Chiune Sugihara. A good number of Japanese citizens also extended help to the Jewish refugees, as they headed toward Japan with Sugihara's visas.Theirs is the courage we would like to follow.

With the Eternal Flame burning here at Yad Vashem serving as a beacon, we must continue to work towards the realization of a world free of discrimination and war, where human rights are protected. Japan is determined to contribute even more actively to world peace and stability.

This year as we mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of Auschwitz, I make a pledge thatwe should never ever let such tragedies be repeated again.

Arigato gozaimashita.  Toda raba.