Never Again

January 29, 2007 at 11:09 am | In Face to Face |

Today the UN General Assembly observes the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust at United Nations Headquarters.

From their website:

“Denying historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust, is just not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of any State or people. I would like to see this fundamental principle respected both in rhetoric and in practice by all the members of the international community.” - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Rejecting any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, the General Assembly adopted by consensus a resolution (A/RES/60/7) condemning “without reserve” all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they occur…

It decided that the United Nations would designate 27 January -– the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp — as an annual International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust, and urged Member States to develop educational programmes to instil the memory of the tragedy in future generations to prevent genocide from occurring again, and requested the United Nations Secretary-General to establish an outreach programme on the “Holocaust and the United Nations”, as well as measures to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.

The Holocaust was a turning point in history, which prompted the world to say “never again”. The significance of resolution A/RES/60/7 is that it calls for a remembrance of past crimes with an eye towards preventing them in the future.

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We urge all of our readers to take some time this week to look back into this dark time in human history and reflect on the lessons we should all learn from this terrible time of human cruelty and weakness in the face of Fascism and Totalitarianism. There are numerous texts, movies, documentaries, museums, photographs, and art works chronicling this time in history and we would like to recommend you a few to reflect on.

Books:
For a rich collection of texts about the Holocaust we refer you to the Yad Vashem Store.

Movies:
Watermarks, A Treasure in Auschwitz, The Optimists, The Last Scene.

Museums:
Yad Vashem, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

These, of course, are just a few of the numerous works and places documenting the Shoa. We recommend these to you as a staring point to either further enrich your knowledge of the Holocaust or as the beginning of your understanding of this dark period in our collective history.