From: Georges Steiner,  The Idea of Europe, Nexus Institute 2004, pp. 8 and 9. Introduction by Rob Riemen.

Prior to the establishment of the Nexus Institute in 1994, the first issue of the journal Nexus had appeared in 1991. This journal would never have existed if it hadn’t been for a friendship: the friendship between the renowned Amsterdam publisher Johan Polak and myself. Our innumerable conversations and letters about the necessity of founding a new journal always centered on one man, one book, and one other journal. That man was George Steiner, the book, his Language and Silence, and the journal, European Judaism. Johan was co-publisher of that journal, which was founded in the late sixties. Every now and then the international editorial board of European Judaism organized a conference. In 1969, a conference was organized in the city of Amsterdam, and Johan was the host. It was a memorable occasion, namely because of the unforgettable appearance by a forty-year old, much-talked-about cultural philosopher: George Steiner. The position he took that day was as simple as it was horrifyingly true: ‘Europe committed suicide by killing its Jews.’ The destruction of six million European Jews, the destruction of the world of Mahler, Alban Berg, Hofmannsthal, Broch, Kafka, Celan, Karl Kraus, Walter Benjamin—the list is endless—was also the destruction of l’esprit européen, the idea of Europe. With the loss of this idea, nothing remained of Europe but a cultureless, soulless, purely geographic and economic entity. However, the George Steiner who made this observation was also the man who had passed up an illustrious career in the United States. After the war and after completing his studies, he returned to Europe. So as not to allow Hitler and his sympathizers the last word; out of loyalty to an idea that must never die.

Johan Polak never forgot what George Steiner told us that day in Amsterdam. I must’ve heard him say it a hundred times: ‘George Steiner is right. Culturally, twentieth-century Europe is back in the Middle Ages. And just like the monasteries of that time, we’ve got to preserve our cultural legacy and hand it down through whatever channels we have.’ That explains Johan’s formidable private library, his publishing house, and his bookshop: Athenaeum, on the Spui in Amsterdam. That is also why our journal Nexus had to be created: to serve European culture, the European ideal of civilization—although for the handing down of a cultural legacy Nexus could never be more than a very small channel.

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The very first issue of Nexus (1, 1991) started with the following quotation, to which we to this day subsribe:

'Chaque homme assez fortuné pour bénéficier plus ou moins de ce legs de culture me paraissait chargé d'un fidéicommis à l'égard du genre humain.'
I believe that everyone who has the good fortune to draw some benefit from that cultural heritage has an obligation to pass it on to humanity.

(Marguerite Yourcenar)