Mr. Stephen Perry,

Director Nic Careem,

Ms. Eva Schloss,

Ms. Lillian Davies,

MPs and lords,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to join you tonight at this event.

On behalf of Ambassador Liu Xiaoming and the Chinese Embassy Women's Group, let me warmly welcome Director Nic Careem from the Blue Sky Network and his team.

I also want to thank the 48 Group Club Women Icebreakers and the Chinese Embassy Women's Group for making this event possible.

My thanks especially go to Ms. Eva Schloss. As you all know, today's drama ‘And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank’ is adapted from her book ‘Eva's Story’.

Eva has a close family link with Anne Frank, who wrote ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’.

Anne's father and Eva's mother built a new family after the war. With the help of her stepfather, Eva finally overcame the hatred in her heart and wrote ‘Eva's Story’.

The drama we are going to watch will bring us back to the years of World War II. It describes an unforgettable journey in human history, shows the glory and hope of humanity and highlights what peace, love and life is all about.

I do not suppose many of you would know this, but during World War II, China opened its arms to Jewish refugees and helped resettle many of them without any conditions. Many Chinese people even put their lives on the line to protect the Jews.

One of them was Mr. He Fengshan, known as the "Chinese Schindler". From 1938 to 1940, Mr. He, as Consul General in Vienna, issued the "visa for life" to thousands of Jews, putting his own life at risk.

Most of these Jews, who got Chinese visas, survived. Over 30,000 of them came to Shanghai. That’s more than all the Jews going to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India combined.

Mr. He’s heroic acts spoke volumes of the love for peace and sense of justice of the Chinese people. These qualities define who we are as a nation.

At the same time when Jews were slaughtered in Europe, the Chinese people were also suffering heavily from invasion by Japan. The invaders seized our land and enslaved and killed the Chinese people, including the Nanjing Massacre, which took over 300,000 lives.

To win freedom and independence, the Chinese nation fought fascism side by side with all the peace-loving nations around the world. So the stories of Annes and Evas really strike a cord in our hearts, too. Although they have now become history, they have retained their timeless and universal appeal.

Today, over 60 years after the war, peace, development and cooperation have become the call of our time. However, our world is still far from stable. It is crying out for understanding, trust and love.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I hope this drama will be our unique experience to learn lessons from history and build a shared future.

In closing, I must thank Ms. Eva Schloss once again for bringing us her story. And again thank you to Director Nic Careem, for showing us the glory of humanity and the value of peace.

I wish the performance tonight a great success.

Thank you!