H.E Mr. Francois Richier, ambassador of France to India
Mrs. Kira Mehra-Kerpelman, Director, UN Information Center for India and Bhutan
Mr. Jean-Philippe Bottin Delegate General, Alliance Francaise,

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

 

We are gathered here today in order to REMEMBER (the victims), HONOUR (the survivors) COMMEMORATE (the liberation of the death camps), CONDEMN (continued anti-Semitism and holocaust denial), LEARN and EDUCATE (the universal lessons of the Holocaust).

 

Here in New Delhi, as well as in hundreds of events throughout the world, we mark today the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The 27th of January was designated as such in a UN General Assembly Resolution 10 years ago, in order to enshrine the memory of the Holocaust.
 
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, ruthless annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators as a central act of state during the Second World War. It was a crime unprecedented, unique in the annals of human history. It was different not only in its magnitude and cruelty but also in its manner and purpose as a mass criminal enterprise organized by a state against defenseless civilian populations.
 
The Holocaust brought us the full extent of man's capacity to dehumanize another, to deprive women and men from most their human rights, and to deny so many the most fundamental right to Life. More than 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Two thirds of European Jewry was massacred by the Nazi death machine. 1.5 million of those were children.

 

The Jews were by far the main target of this atrocity but the Nazi regime declared other “undesirable” groups. Roma and Sinti, communists, homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled and other groups felt the brunt of the Nazi hate machine. For as we remember the victims of the Holocaust or Shoah, we have to understand that the mass murder of six million Jews, and millions of non-Jews, is not a matter of abstract statistics.
 
Among them there were hundreds of thousands of scientists, scholars, doctors, artists, inventors, social activists and others. Forever we will wonder if amongst the victims were those who would have cured cancer, find the way to produce clean and accessible energy, eliminate poverty, bring peace and prosperity to all.

The Holocaust cannot sink into the dark hole of history. It is here with us. We are here to remember the victims of the Holocaust.

Ladies and Gentelmen, On this day, exactly 70 years ago, the largest death camp in history was once and for all liberated. On January 27, 1945 Allied forces from the Soviet Union as well as US, Britain, France and Canada entered Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps (Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen Belsen,Ravensbruck, Mauthausen, Theresienstatd, Treblinka, Sobibor to name just a few), liberated the camps and freed the survivors from the horror. As described by one of the liberators, a US army colonel, William Quinn "There our troops found sights, sounds and stenches horrible beyond belief, cruelties so enormous as to be incomprehensible to the normal mind".

The servicemen and women, of the Allied Forces, travelled miles from home, put their lives in danger, to fight an enemy that for many of them was strange and distant. They were not passive onlookers but rather they answered the most fundamental value of any society who wishes to survive and strive.

 

WE ARE HERE TO COMMEMORATE THE LIBERATION OF THE CAMPS AND SALUTE THOSE WHO FREED THEM FOR THEIR SACRIFICES!

Decades have past. Many of the survivors of the death camps are no longer with us. Many are no longer here to share their stories to be witnessed in the court of history. That is why it is up to us to teach and tell their stories. It is our duty to make sure their memory will not be forgotten. We are now the bearers of the torch they have been holding high by resisting, enduring and remaining alive after the Holocaust. We carry the duty to make sure the fire will ever burn so this will never happen again. WE ARE HERE TO PAY OUR RESPECT AND HONOR TO THE SURVIVORS.
 
And as we commit ourselves to remember the victims and the saviors and honor the survivors, we are also here today standing against those who wish to wipe off their memory, to re-write the course of history by denying the Holocaust ever occured. While Holocaust denial has been apparent almost since the end of World War II, today it can be found in Anti-Semitic circles worldwide and has also found its mentor, in state supported malicious Holocaust denial by the leaders of Iran.

For many others, Holocaust Denial is simply the result of lack of familiarity. In an era of Globalism and easy access to information, we can no longer talk about “my history” or “their history”. Our lives, our well-being and, yes ‘our pasts’ are intertwined. We can no longer say “we didn’t know”.

 

In the last few years, we have been witnessing a new wave of Anti-Semitism around the world, tragically resulting even in the loss of human lives in the past few weeks. It is the same hatred for the “other” in a different form. It is still dangerous, cruel and destructive.

Therefore, it is also the duty of the international community to recognize and fight Anti-Semitism. Let me quote in this respect from the Joint Statement Against Anti-Semitism at the United Nations General Assembly just a few days ago on 22nd of January 2015: “Even as the Holocaust remains a part of living memory, Jewish communities around the world are once again under attack, and in certain parts of the world Jews are attacked for exercising their Human Rights of Freedom of peaceful assembly and association and freedom of opinion and expression”.

 

WE ARE HERE TO CONDEMN HOLOCAUST DENIAL. WE ARE HERE TO CONDEMN ANTI-SEMITISM.

 

Anti-Semitism had never had set it foot in India. Jews have been living here peacefully without persecutions for over two millennia. This is a lesson and message of tolerance India can and should teach other nations and other countries.
 
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Holocaust teaches us a few lessons that we should never forget. It is our duty not only to learn these important lessons but also to teach them unto the next generations so that the atrocities will not be repeated.
 
One of these lessons is that there is nothing stronger than the human spirit and there is nothing more unbreakable than the hearts and minds of human beings.

 Allow me to reach out to the wise words of Tagore:

“Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless when facing them”.

WE ARE HERE TO TEACH THE LESSONS OF THE HOLOCAUST IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN: ANYWHERE AND ANYTIMNE. NOT TO JEWS, NOT TO ANYONE ELSE!
 
It is through the compassion, respect and fearlessness that we can promise ourselves and our children that another Holocaust will never happen again.

On this occasion, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to recite from a Jewish prayer in memory of, and in honor of, the six million Jews who burned to ashes:

"עושה שלום במרומיו, הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל, ואמרו אמן"
"He, who makes peace in His Heights, may He, in his compassion, make peace upon us, and upon all Israel. And they responded: Amen."

THANK YOU