{"id":65744,"date":"2014-01-24T15:54:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T11:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=65744"},"modified":"2014-01-24T15:54:11","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T11:54:11","slug":"a-visit-to-auschwitz-op-ed-article-of-un-the-secretary-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=65744","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA Visit To Auschwitz\u201d Op-Ed Article of UN the Secretary-General"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u057a\u0561\u0576\u0563\u056b<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

This year\u2019s observance of the International Remembrance Day on January 27th — the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp — falls at a time when there are reminders all around us of the dangers of forgetting.\u00a0 This year marks two decades since the genocide in Rwanda.\u00a0 Conflicts in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic have taken on dangerous communal dimensions.\u00a0 Bigotry still courses through our societies and our politics.\u00a0 The world can and must do more to eliminate the poison that led to the camps.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau last November.\u00a0 A chill wind was blowing that day; the ground was rocky underfoot. \u00a0But I had an overcoat and sturdy shoes; my thoughts went to those who had had neither: the Jews and other prisoners who once populated the camp. \u00a0I thought of those captives standing naked for hours in icy weather, torn from their families and shorn of their hair as they were readied for the gas chambers. \u00a0I thought of those who were kept alive only to be worked to death. \u00a0Above all, I reflected on how unfathomable the Holocaust remains even today.\u00a0 The cruelty was so profound; the scale so large; the Nazi worldview so warped and extreme; the killing so organized and calculated nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The barracks at Birkenau seemed to stretch to the horizon in every direction – a vast factory of death. \u00a0The \u201cBook of Names\u201d identifying millions of Jewish victims filled a room yet contained just a fraction of the toll, which also encompassed Poles, Roma, Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war, dissidents, homosexuals, people with disabilities and others. \u00a0I was especially moved by a video showing European Jewish life in the 1930s – scenes of family meals and visits to the beach, musical and theatre performances, weddings and other rituals, all savagely extinguished through systematic murder unique in human history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marian Turski, a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz and is today the Vice-President of the International Auschwitz Committee, walked me through the infamous \u201cArbeit Macht Frei\u201d gate — this time in freedom. \u00a0Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, a survivor of Buchenwald and now the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, stood with me on the ramp where the transport trains unloaded their human cargo, and recounted the traumatic moment when the swift flick of an SS commander\u2019s index finger meant the difference between life and death. \u00a0I grieve for those who died in the camps, and I am awed by those who lived — who bear sorrowful memories yet have shown the strength of the human spirit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was also accompanied by students from the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oswiecim, who work to build bridges among people and nations. \u00a0L\u2019dor v\u2019dor,<\/i> Marian Turski said to me – Hebrew for \u201cfrom generation to generation\u201d, the passing on of wisdom. \u00a0It is for this reason that Auschwitz-Birkenau is on UNESCO\u2019s World Heritage List. \u00a0We cannot build the future without remembering the past; what happened once can recur.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Combatting hatred is among the cardinal missions of The United Nations. \u00a0Our human rights mechanisms work to protect people. \u00a0Our special courts and tribunals strive to combat impunity, deliver justice and deter violations. \u00a0UN special advisers on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect scan the world for the precursors of atrocity crimes.\u00a0 The Alliance of Civilizations initiative seeks to counter manifestations of hatred, from anti-Semitism and Islamophobia to ultra-nationalism and bias against minorities.\u00a0 Our new \u201cRights Up Front\u201d effort seeks to strengthen early action to prevent grave abuses of human rights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For almost a decade, the \u201cUnited Nations and the Holocaust Outreach Programme\u201d has been working with teachers and students on all continents to to promote tolerance and universal values. \u00a0The programme\u2019s newest educational package, produced in partnership with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, will help to introduce Holocaust studies into classrooms in countries ranging from Brazil and Nigeria to Russia and Japan.\u00a0 At this year\u2019s remembrance ceremony at UN Headquarters, the featured speaker will be Steven Spielberg, whose Shoah Institute for Visual History and Education was a landmark in preserving survivor testimony.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A few steps from the crematorium at Auschwitz, I took a moment to myself for reflection. \u00a0I touched a barbed wire fence — no longer electrified but still sharp and intimidating. \u00a0I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of what had happened within, and humbled by the courage and sacrifice of the soldiers and leaders of many nations who defeated the Nazi menace. \u00a0My hope is that our generation, and those to come, will summon that same sense of collective purpose to prevent such horror from happening again anywhere, to anyone or any group, and build a world of equality for all.<\/p>\n


<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u0531\u0576\u056f\u0561\u056d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s observance of the International Remembrance Day on January 27th — the anniversary of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":44558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,200,224,194],"tags":[6120,6119],"class_list":["post-65744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-choice","category-essay","category-news","category-opinion","tag-auschwitz","tag-secretary-general","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}