Israeli Ambassador in Serbia Yossef Levy expressed his gratitude and admiration for the manner in which Serbian officials honor the memory of Holocaust victims, adding, however, that many citizens are unaware of the Jewish Holocaust in Serbia.
Year after year, I see politicians, the president, the prime minister, the ministers, personally attending the commemorations, Levy told Tanjug ahead of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27.
Levy pointed to the touching speeches by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, the presence of Minister of Labor, Employment, Social Policy and Veteran Affairs Aleksandar Vulin at the opening of an exhibition on war crimes of the Wehrmacht, and Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic attending the ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Novi Sad raid.
I strongly appreciate the personal involvement of so many high-ranking Serbian officials in creating this architecture of memory. This is important both for Serbia and for us, the Israeli ambassador said.
Speaking about the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the largest Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, which will be marked on January 27, Levy stressed that the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of more than 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, remains the most tragic chapter in the long and tumultuous history of the Jewish people.
We are still living in the shadow of the Holocaust... We are still living with the burden of that memory and pain, the ambassador said, adding that Europe was home to the Jewish people before the Holocaust but that not many of them had survived World War II.
Today we are facing a tide of extremely violent anti-Semitism. This is not 1938 or 1939, but again we hear people saying that Europe is no place for Jews, Levy said.
Referring to the anti-Semitism as a disease, Levy said that the horrifying message of the Holocaust - that gruesome crimes were committed against helpless people simply because they were different - must never be forgotten.
It is our duty to bear in mind the meaning of humaneness: it means to be compassionate, fair, and to never allow any nation, whichever it may be, to become the victim of such cruelty, simply because it is different, Levy said.
He warned that even today shocking events take place around the world, particularly in the Middle East, calling to memory some of the saddest episodes of the Holocaust.
Being indifferent to such scenes is the worst. When you see evil, you must not keep quiet, you must face it and fight against it, he stressed.
He noted that the Holocaust took place in Yugoslavia as well, in the territory of today's Serbia, where Nazis and their collaborators killed around 90 percent of Serbian Jews, but that many people are not familiar with this fact.
I wonder how many Serbs, crossing the bridge on the Sava River in Belgrade every day, know what went on at Staro Sajmiste 70 years ago. Thousands of women and children were held captive there, in the cold, sick and hungry, and finally executed in gas vans, he said.
I think that it is the priority for Serbia, and in the interest of Serbia, as well as in our interest, to read this history book together, the book that unites us, said Levy, adding that many Serbs met the same fate as Jews.
The Jews and the Serbs are part of the same history chapter, which we should read together, with eyes wide open, with courage and friendship, the Israeli ambassador said.
Source: Tanjug, Photo: D. Peternek