Martyrdom & Resistance, January/February 2007

ID Transcript mare3303_01 "Vol. 33-N0.3 ISSN 0892-1571 January/February 2007-Tevet/Shevat 5767 UN MARKS HOLOCAUST DAY AS CONSTANT REMINDER TO PREVENT FUTURE GENOCIDES On January 29, the United Nations marked the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust with an urgent appeal that the remembrance of the millions of Jews and others murdered by the Nazis serve to prevent new massacres, a rebuff for those who deny that the tragedy ever occurred, and moving testimony from survivors. ""The Holocaust was a unique and undeniable tragedy,"" Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a video message played to a special memorial ceremony in the General Assembly Hall on the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews, 500,000 Roma and Sinti and other minorities, disabled and homosexuals were killed. ""Decades later, the systematic murder of millions of Jews and others retains its power to shock. The ability of the Nazis to command a following, despite their utter depravity, still strikes fear. And above all, the pain remains: for aging survivors, and for all of us as a human family that witnessed a descent into barbarism. He emphasized the importance of remembrance in tribute to those who perished and in global efforts to stem the tide of human cruelty. He said the presence at today's ceremony of disabled persons and the Roma and Sinti community showed that, even now, the act of bearing witness can offer new perspectives, while the participation of young people highlighted the value of going beyond remembrance to ensure More than 500 peopie gathered at the UN headquarters in New York to mark that new genera- the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of tions know this the Holocaust. eneral Assembly President Sheikha Haya Al Khalifa called for paying history. G< I tribute to all victims - the needless deaths of millions of Jews and the suffering endured by the many minority groups that were also victims, some of whom were present in the Hall. ""Today's commemoration is an important reminder of the universal lessons of the Holocaust, a unique evil which cannot simply be consigned to the past and forgotten. The Holocaust was a historical event, which cannot be denied. Its consequences still reverberate in the present."" she told the ceremony. ""It is a tragedy that Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American and International Societies for the international com- Yad Vashem and Simone Veil, keynote speaker at the annual International munity has not been Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust at the able to Stop new hor- UN , President of the Foundation Pour la Memoire de la Shoah. rors in the years IN THIS ISSUE Updated Encyclopedia Judaica hits shelves..... 3 Saving the Jews. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust 4 When remembrance fails 5 A Shoah survivor writes about his miracles 6 Their private Holocaust 7 Young Leadership Associates tenth anniversary. 8-9 Survivors seek more Holocaust funds 10 ""Secondary Holocaust effect"" 11 Report from the American Society for Yad Vashem 12 Catholic clergy rescued Italian Jews 13 Poland must deal with its past 14 since the Holocaust. This makes it all the more important that we remember the lessons of the past so that we do not make the same mistakes in the future. We must remain vigilant. The forces of hatred, bigotry and racism are still at work in the world."" Thomas Schindlmayr, who works on disability issues for the UN but was speaking in his personal capacity, discussed the persecution of people with disabilities under Nazi Germany. ""They were stripped of any legal protection and denied control over their own lives and bodies,"" he said, recalling the forced sterilization of persons with disabilities and other abuses. While much had been learned since then, the notion that persons with disabilities are somehow inferior is still prevalent, he warned. were sent straight to the gas chambers,"" she added, recalling how her own father and brother were taken away, never to be seen again. ""We thought we had no more tears but we still wept, and I still weep today when I think of those who were marched directly to the gas chambers, she said. ""And I think of it every day, many times."" She said that, while those who survived hoped and pledged ""Never again,"" their warnings were in vain. ""After the massacres in Cambodia, it is Africa that is paying the highest price in genocidal terms,"" she said, referring in particular to the events in Darfur, Sudan, and calling for UN action in response. Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor, who moderated the event, said it had two key purposes: ""Of course, we meet to mourn that part of our human family that is missing - to remember the individuals and tell each other their stories. But we also meet to unearth the lessons we can draw from their lives and their fates."" He said the first among those lessons ""is that, just as human beings have an almost infinite power to destroy, they also possess an enormous capacity to learn, to grow and to create."" Ceremonies were held in other UN outposts around the world. ""The sheer dimensions of the organized murder of The keynote speaker, Simone Veil, a member of the Constitutional Council of France and President of the Foundation Pour la Memoire de la Shoah, said that by creating this annual observance, the UN had remained faithful to its founding principles. ""For those of us who were deported, not a day goes by that we do not think of the Shoah,"" said Ms. Veil, who was a prisoner in Auschwitz, and was at Bergen-Belsen when that camp was liberated by the British Army. ""What obsesses us the most is the memory of those from whom we were brutally separated when we arrived at the camps, and who we later learned Eli Zborowski, Chairman American and International Societies for Yad Vashem and Under-Secretary-General of the UN Shashi Tharoor. Jews and others, the very scale of the systematic attempt at destroying an entire people, make the Holocaust a unique calamity that cannot - and should not - be forgotten, let alone denied,"" the Director- General of the UN Office in Geneva told a ceremony at the Palais des Nations. Earlier, the General Assembly condemned without reservation any denial of the Holocaust, with only Iran publicly disassociating itself from the consensus resolution. "