Ambassador Oren Anolik's speech during the Holocaust Commemoration Event with Moshe Haelion, Holocaust survivor.
"We are gathered here today to commemorate the Holocaust – the Genocide of the Jewish people – a well-planned, well-executed murderous operation, carried out by the Nazi regime.
On January 27th 1945, Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army. In 2005, the United Nations decided that January 27th will be the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
On this day, the world comes together in commemorating the victims; in remembering those who were certain they had been forgotten.
The famous writer and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once said: “Whoever listens to a witness, becomes a witness”.
We are privileged to have with us today Mr. Moshe Aelion, an Israeli citizen of Greek-Jewish origins and a survivor of the Holocaust.
Mr Aelion was among the only 2,000 Jews from Thessaloniki who survived the Holocaust. A small portion of a once-thriving, ancient Jewish community of 50,000 people, almost completely wiped-out by the Nazis.
I wholeheartedly thank him for being with us. I am impressed by his courage and grateful for his persistence to continue telling his story.
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Entire families perished completely in the Holocaust. Parents, children, grandparents and grandchildren, without a single relative, that could have at least carried their memory.
Such was the case of the Jewish community in the town of Vilkomir in Lithuania. About 8,000 Jews were living in this town, known today as Ukmerge, when the Nazis entered it on June 26th 1941.
Three months later, there was not a single living Jew in Vilkomir. Within these three months, the Nazis, with assistance of members of the local population, systematically killed all of the Jews.
Most of the killings took place in the nearby Pivonija forest. The Jews were marched into the woods, placed inside a ditch, and were shot to death. Among them were my great grandparents, Zeev and Sara Anolik together with 5 of their children.
Luckily, my grandfather, Isaac Anolik left his home and family six years earlier and made his way to the Land of Israel. Otherwise, I would not have been here with you today.
* * *
I stand before you not only as Oren Anolik, a descendant of a family, which most of it perished in the Holocaust. I stand here today also as an official representative of my country, the State of Israel, Homeland of the Jewish people.
The Holocaust is fundamental in understanding Israel today. It is part of our individual and national identity. It has implications on our perspectives and views.
The tragedy of the Jewish people is a unique phenomenon. Contrary to their policies toward other groups, the Nazis sought to murder any Jew, regardless of age, gender, beliefs, or deeds. And they did it in a systematic way, garnering the vast resources and mechanisms of a modern state.
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However, it was during those darkest moments that a few people defended human values. There were non-Jews who irrelevant of religious and ethnic beliefs risked their own lives to save their Jewish neighbors. They acted as rescuers in various ways, either hiding Jews in their houses, providing them with false identities, or assisting them to escape.
* * *
Let us remember then.
Remember those who perished;
Remember what brought about this human tragedy;
And remember those who kept their human values in darkest times and helped others.
Let us remember it and never forget.
The Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust, Yehuda Bauer said “the horror of the Holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn't. What happened may happen again.”
To this I would add that remembering what happened is the first step in preventing it from ever occurring again.