President Garcés; Under-Secretary-General Smale; Ambassador Cohen; Ambassador De Bernardin; distinguished delegates; honored guests; dear survivors:
In April of 1999, the late Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, delivered his famous address, entitled, “The Perils of Indifference.” He recalled the searing sense of being left behind – the pain of being forgotten – that consumed the Jews locked behind the dark gates of the Nazi death camps.
He warned of the danger of apathy.
In his own words, to be indifferent, and I quote, “is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference…is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative…. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You [can] fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response.”
Ladies and gentlemen,
Bystanders; apathy; indifference – these three words reflect the ease of doing nothing. They show the comfort of pretending not to know. They represent the luxury – the privilege – of staying silent.
When entire societies turn off their attention, millions of innocent people perish. When individuals make excuses, children die. And when future generations forget, Antisemitism flourishes.
In 2018, the world witnessed the capabilities of Antisemitism when it is well-fed.
Less than two months after we were here, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day last year, Mirielle Knoll, an 85-year old Jewish woman from France, a Holocaust survivor, was murdered in her own home in Paris by her neighbors. Decades after she survived the Holocaust, Mirielle was killed for being Jewish.
On October 27, 2018, on a Shabbat morning in Pittsburgh, the Tree of Life synagogue became a crime scene. Eleven innocent people, beloved in the community, were slaughtered by someone who believed all Jews should die. It was the deadliest attack on Jews in United States history.
These eleven men and women were killed for being Jewish.
In the Jewish community, Holocaust education is embedded in our upbringing. The words, “never forget,” and, “never again,” are pillars of our identities. Our children meet Holocaust survivors at school. We travel to Auschwitz; Warsaw; Vilna; to see the remnants of our people’s darkest chapters.
But the Jewish people today are 0.2% of the population. For the rest of the world, the apathy, the indifference, the lack of knowledge is paralyzing.
A recent survey showed that 1/3 of Europeans know little or nothing about the Holocaust. Another survey reported that four in ten young Americans do not know that six million Jews were massacred in the Holocaust. A global survey revealed that only 54% of people worldwide have even heard of the Holocaust.
This is what happens when apathy gains power.
It is, therefore, critical that today, on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we honor those who did not stand by, but stood up. Those who chose empathy over apathy; and those who rejected indifference and made a difference. We call these courageous men and women the “Righteous Among the Nations.” They were ordinary people – shopkeepers; business people; farmers; nurses; diplomats from all over the world. Everyone was capable of being an upstander – one who stood up to evil.
People like President Quezon of the Philippines, who provided refuge and personal property to fleeing Jews, and, with the help of his team, saved 1,200 German and Austrian Jews.
Or Consul Sugihara from Japan, who ignored his orders and issued visas himself to desperate Jews in need.
Or Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat based in Budapest, who used his full diplomatic immunity to purchase 32 buildings in the city and house tens of thousands of Jews.
In the wise words of Consul Sousa Mendes of Portugal, a man who saved thousands of Jews, and I quote: “I would rather stand with God against man, than with man against God.”
The lesson we learn from the courage of the upstanders is how to become them ourselves.
Today, that is our responsibility. Today, it is our responsibility to choose the right side of history. Today, it is our responsibility to become the Quezon’s; the Sugihara’s; the Wallenberg’s of the present. Today, it is our responsibility to overcome apathy and to speak up.
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is true that the Holocaust has countless lessons to teach us about action and apathy; tolerance and bigotry; human rights and crimes against humanity.
These are its universal messages.
But as we recognize its common themes and lessons, we cannot muddle the uniquely evil character of the Holocaust under the headline of universalism. The Holocaust was, ultimately, a plan to exterminate the Jewish people. The Final Solution was the Nazis’ answer to the so-called “Jewish question.” The goal was to erase the Jews.
In light of this, you, the survivors of the Holocaust who are still with us today – you have a grave responsibility. You are the gatekeepers to the truth of mankind’s capacity for evil. Without your direct accounts, we inch dangerously close to a time in which we become ignorant; a time when apathy – the enemy of humanity – prevails.
So we must listen to you. We must document. We must ask questions, and we must record all your answers.
A month and a half ago, Noah Klieger, a survivor of Auschwitz who stood here on this stage two years ago to address the world, passed away. Noah had the courage to share his story of survival
from Auschwitz; of retribution, by covering trials of Nazi criminals after the war; and of prosperity in the Holy Land of Israel.
Like his fellow survivors, Noah was determined to conquer apathy, so that the world would never forget.
In their honor, we must do the same.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Jewish people survived. The Jewish people overcame. The Jewish people returned to our homeland; rebuilt from the ashes; and reestablished our proud Jewish nation with our own defense forces.
But our fate has not been sealed in safety. Calls for the destruction of the Jewish people continue in full force. They appear against the Jewish State. They reveal themselves on the walls of synagogues; on the gravestones in Jewish cemeteries; on the sides of Iranian ballistic missiles.
This is what happens when the world chooses apathy. Apathy means not taking seriously the threats to destroy the Jewish state. Apathy means not acknowledging when Jews are victims of terrorism. Apathy means silence in the face of a three-day-old Jewish baby, murdered by a terrorist who was paid by his leaders to kill. Apathy means allowing a member state to develop nuclear weapons, when it clearly states its intention to destroy the Jewish state.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Tonight, a delegation of nearly forty UN ambassadors will embark on their journey to Poland to see the ashes of evil with their own eyes. We will then travel to Israel to experience the miracle of the Jewish state. The ambassadors will meet a nation rebuilt from the darkest of times. They will witness a thriving people that lives each day to the fullest to achieve the ultimate prosperity and peace.
In 1981, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, offered his insights about the Holocaust. He said, and I quote, “There is a pattern to Jewish history…we rise, we fall, we return, we are exiled, we are enslaved, we rebel…and again we suffer destruction.”
But, he continued, “we have come full circle, and with God’s help, with the rebirth of sovereign Israel, we have finally broken the historic cycle.”
Today, the Jewish people, and the Jewish state, are embracing an era that will never see us go. We are alive. We are strong. We are determined. We are here to stay.
The nation of Israel lives. Am Yisrael Chai.
Thank you.