Director-General of the United Nations Offices in Nairobi, Ms. Zainab Hawa Bangura,
Director of the United Nations Information Center, Mr. Nasser Ega-Musa,
Fellow Ambassadors,
Director of Center for Intellectual Property and Information Technology (CIPIT), Dr. Isaac Rutenberg,
Kenya Friends of Israel,
Faculties of Universities and University students,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Brothers and Sisters,
Today is a day to remember, to reflect and to look forward.
We are here to honour the victims of the Holocaust-the six million Jews and many others murdered during a period of unprecedented, calculated cruelty, when human dignity was cast aside for a racial ideology.
We are here together to mourn the loss of so many and of so much.
The world has a duty to remember that the Holocaust was a systematic attempt to eliminate the Jewish people and so many others.
It would be a dangerous error to think of the Holocaust as simply the result of the insanity of a group of criminal Nazis. On the contrary, the Holocaust was the culmination of millennia of hatred and discrimination targeting the Jews – what we now call anti-Semitism.
This International Day marks the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp 75 years ago. As the number of survivors dwindles, it falls upon us all to carry their testimony to future generations. This is our duty and we must make sure that the memories of survivors persist forever. Education about the Holocaust is crucial, about genocide and crimes against humanity, about racism and the history of slavery.
The Jewish people have learned the lessons of the Holocaust: to always take seriously the threats of those who seek our destruction; to confront threats when they are small; and above all, even though we deeply, deeply appreciate the great support of our friends, to always have the power to defend ourselves by ourselves. We have learned that Israel must always remain the master of its fate.
The Holocaust also saw great acts of heroism, from ordinary people who protected others to diplomats who, at grave risk to themselves, defied the Nazis to enable thousands of people to escape certain death. Some of these are well known such as Sweden’s Raoul Wallenberg and Japan’s Chiune Sugihara. These were the Righteous Among the Nations who risked not only their own lives, but the lives of their families to save Jews during the Holocaust.
As we mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, let us not repeat past mistakes and let us remember all the victims and their collective suffering. We must not stay silent. It is our duty not to stay silent.
The Holocaust reminds us that there is no limit to the suffering that human beings have been willing to inflict on others, no matter how innocent, no matter how young, and no matter how old. The victims of the Holocaust had to face the reality of mortality at a young age; some were too young to even understand death, let alone come to terms with their mortality.
The theme "75 years after Auschwitz - Holocaust Education and Remembrance for Global Justice" reflects the continued importance of collective action against antisemitism and other forms of bias to ensure respect for the dignity and human rights of all people everywhere. Holocaust education reminds us that we have a responsibility to each other, that we need to be vigilant against attacks on the dignity and rights of all our human family, that together we can shape a future in which all have equal opportunity to thrive in a world that is just and peaceful
More than 40 world leaders were in Jerusalem last week for the Fifth World Holocaust Forum (WHF) to commemorate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day as this year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Birkenau. Resurgent antisemitism around the globe and violent attacks against Jewish individuals and institutions have given rise to fears that if world leaders do not join forces in stamping out incitement, racial hatred and general xenophobia, the catastrophe which engulfed the world 80 years ago may repeat itself.
Honored guests, the State of Israel is not compensation for the Holocaust. This is our home and this is our homeland. It is where we came from and where we returned to after 2000 years of exile. Israel is a strong democracy and a proud member of the family of nations. We are not a people waiting for redemption, but a state that looks for partnership – that demands partnership.
Full partnership in the fight against racism, and the old-new antisemitism that is breaking out today in worrying ways. It takes the guise of superiority, national purity and xenophobia that worms its way into the heart of leadership and takes a terrible price in human life
In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz camp, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its satellite camps. Nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to march to the city of Wodzislaw in the western part of Upper Silesia. More than 15,000 died during the death marches from Auschwitz. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million Jews were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered in Auschwitz.
We look for rational understanding of something that is beyond human comprehension. We seek definitive answers, but in vain.
What is left is the testimony of those few who survived and their descendants.
What is left are the remains of the sites of these murders and the historical record. What is left also is the certainty that these extermination camps were a manifestation of absolute evil.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was a direct effect of the Holocaust on international law. It requires people of different cultural, religious, and racial origins to respect and protect life and human dignity throughout the world.
We thank those countries that have already adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, a comprehensive definition that includes all types of contemporary antisemitism, and call on all countries to do the same. This definition is a meaningful tool in the fight against antisemitism, both in education and political discourse and in the field of law enforcement.
In these 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, our people have made a long journey. On this long journey, we will never forget our brothers and sisters who perished in the fires of the Holocaust. It is on their behalf and in their memory that we are working to ensure the continuity of Israel.
I also wish to note with thanks, the presence of the Kenyan students. It is of much importance to bring to the attention of the Kenyan people, and mainly you, the youth generation, the moral message of the holocaust; fight the vice, never to be victims, never to be perpetrators, and never to be by-standers.
Together with you I bow my head before the victims of the Holocaust. Even if one day the names of the victims should fade in the memory of mankind, their fate will not be forgotten. They will remain in the heart of history. May we always remember,
Never again.