‘’Anyone who knows anything about our history knows that anti-Semitism is Europe's most pernicious disease. It is the red line that we must never, ever cross,’’ said First European Commission Vice-President Timmermans in a speech to the third Inter-Parliamentary Conference for Combating Anti-Semitism (ICCA) in Berlin.

The conference brought together more than 100 parliamentarians from nearly 40 countries, as well as dozens of non-governmental organizations.

‘’We see age-old naked anti-Semitism at the far right, we see antisemitism that often hides behind anti-Zionism on the far left of the political spectrum and sometimes, sadly, even among anti-racism movements, and we see the deadly anti-Semitism of religious extremism, in particular from islamist extremists.’’

‘’It is happening again. Jewish children leaving public schools for fear of harassment, teachers no longer daring to teach the Holocaust in a multicultural classroom, Synagogues heavily guarded, students warned to hide their kippahs beneath baseball caps for fear of being knifed on the streets.

‘’This cannot be, it must not be our Europe,’’ Timmermans said.

‘’As we saw in the terrorist attacks in Paris in November – it starts always with the Jews, but it never stops there,’’ he added.

He acknowledged that ‘’as societies we have been too timid, we have been too silent. We've allowed a huge sentiment of loneliness to develop among European Jews.’’

He continued, ‘’Denouncing anti-Semitism is a collective responsibility, just like anti-Muslim sentiment needs to be denounced by society as a whole.’’

‘’A boy in Amsterdam, who is attacked for wearing a kippah, has exactly the same feeling of insecurity and loneliness as a girl in Amsterdam who is spit at for wearing a headscarf. For them, there is no difference, both are discriminated not for something they do, but for who they are.’’

Timmermans urged parliamentarians and politicians ‘’to speak up, to keep these issues high, and make clear that there is no tolerance whatsoever towards such hatred, that nothing can explain, and nothing can excuse hatred of this kind in our countries today.’’

He deplored that the EU-wide legislation making serious manifestations of racism and xenophobia punishable by criminal law is still not enforced everywhere. Only 13 out of 28 Member States have criminalised Holocaust denial, he mentioned.

‘’We are pushing and we will keep pushing at the European Commission to make sure that these rules are correctly translated into national legislation and correctly enforced,’’ he said.

He stressed the importance of education as the most important instrument against ignorance, intolerance and indifference.

‘’We need to use education to make more responsible citizens, who are aware of the threats of bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism.

‘’Zero tolerance towards anti-Semitism should be part in all curricula in all educations across the European Union.’’

He mentioned that trainings have been set up for staff members of the European on the role of the civil service in bringing education about the Holocaust.

On the table of the three-day Berlin conference, which started on Sunday, are the challenges of Internet hate, community relations and anti-Semitism in sport, as well as legal, parliamentary and governmental responses to anti-Semitism. Best practices for combating anti-Semitism are also discussed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the conference on Monday . It was organised against a backdrop of rising anti-Semitic incidents in Europe, and growing anxiety about the potential for anti-Semitism among the more than 1 million refugees who have poured in to Europe in the past year from war-torn Syria and other Arab and Muslim lands.

In Berlin alone, the latest statistics from the Research and Information on Anti-Semitism organization showed a 34 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2015 than in the previous year.

Most anti-Semitic crimes are attributable to far-right perpetrators, but there is increasing concern about attitudes that new refugees have brought with them.

These attitudes “must be put on the table” as part of the integration process, said Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

In remarks to the attendees, Norbert Lammert, president of Bundestag, the German federal parliament, agreed that “there is a link” between the newcomers and anti-Semitism, though one cannot assume that all refugees share these views.

“They were probably told that Israel was still the villain of the world,” he said. Their integration will involve “accepting Israel’s right to exist.”

Merkel has insisted that new refugees who want to stay in Germany will have to adopt German values, which include rejecting anti-Semitism and respecting the rights of minorities, women and gays.