Remarks at the Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration
Dublin, 29th January 2012
Is breá liom bheith anseo i bhúr measc ag an ócáid speisialta seo, agus ba mhaith liom mo bhúiochas a chur in iul díbh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to be here today for the national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration and would like to thank Lynn Jackson for her kind invitation to speak to you this evening.
We are honoured to have among us this evening a small number of Holocaust survivors in Ireland who were children during this dark period of history. I would personally like to acknowledge those survivors present here this evening:
- Suzi Diamond,
- Jan Kaminski,
- Tomi Reichental and
- Zoltan Zinn-Collis.
I thank you for coming here and for so generously sharing your personal and traumatic experiences with the children in our schools and with the wider community.
I am also delighted to see so many children participating in this evening’s commemoration. I believe there are one hundred school children here from around the country and I know that later on some of you will read from the scroll of names of cherished family members who perished in the Holocaust and who had personal links to people living here in Ireland.
The Jewish American writer and concentration camp survivor Eli Wiesel, writing about the dark and terrible moment in world history that was the Holocaust has posed the question ‘how do we remember’? Today we are offered an opportunity to remember, to reflect on actions that sent waves of horror, shock and revulsion across the world, to remember a people whose culture and identity was sought to be eliminated, and the six million Jews who lost their lives in the concentration camps of Europe. This action, the crime of genocide, is of such an order that lifts it beyond consideration of murder. What is broken, what is violated is the human community itself as Hannah Arendt suggested.
The Holocaust is a huge stain on European history, one that shows us the true evil that can emerge from hatred, prejudice and intolerance; the terrible inhumanity that can arise and how an ideology can emerge that threatens the order of humanity itself. It showed us the horrific story that unfolds when genocide is unleashed, and allowed to become state policy and the consequences of such a silence as becomes complicity. It also shows us the dangers of looking the other way, of denial or of simply ‘not wanting to know’.
The philosopher and writer George Santayana once reminded us that
‘He, who does not learn from history, is doomed to repeat it.' Today, over sixty years after those terrible events, we continue to regard the Holocaust with horror, revulsion, shock and disbelief. It is important, however, that we also continue to learn lessons from the horrors of Nazi persecution and genocide and apply that learning to the present day in order to ensure that the consequences of discrimination, injustice, apartheid and intolerance are not forgotten by our own or future generations.
Today, the visible signs of war and death have largely disappeared from the streets of Europe, even if they are still all too present in other zones of conflict around the world. Fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors still live to testify and tell their stories. As time continues to pass, and we move further away from that dark and bleak chapter of inhumanity, we too, like Eli Wiesel, must ask ourselves ‘How do we remember?’
There are, of course, those who would like to ensure that we would not remember; that we would not learn from the nadir to which human behaviour fell in this period; or, at its most perverse, that we would understate or indeed deny the horrific events that caused the slaughter of millions of persons across Europe. There can be no doubt that to deny the Holocaust is an abuse of history. It is a rejection of scholarship, a wilful denial of truth and, most grievously, it is a refusal to learn from a shameful moment in human history. Denial is a profoundly immoral act, the condemnation of which must never be a matter of equivocation.
As humanitarians or simply as fellow human beings, it is important that we continue to work to preserve the memory of the many people whose lives were taken so shockingly and so tragically, and that we commit to remembering and drawing lessons from actions that have taken place, as well as from the actions that should have happened but did not. It is important that, despite the passage of time, despite events and participants beginning to fade into the distance, we do not make the unforgiveable mistake of forgetting the cold, wilful annihilation of innocent people which was the Holocaust. The Jewish people, the communists, the gays, the gypsies, the trade unionists about whom so many were silent. It is critical that we do not become indifferent, or doubting, or allow people to distort the past for their own ends.
In signing the Stockholm Declaration in 2000, the Irish Government committed, along with its European partners and the wider international community, to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honour those who took a stand against evil. Moreover, as part of its full membership of the Taskforce of International Cooperation on Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research, the Irish Government has recently committed itself to ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust are promoted for the next generation. This is an important ongoing responsibility and one we must all play our part in discharging.
On this Holocaust Memorial Day let us commit to doing our part, no matter how modest, to remember and to ensure others remember now and into the future. And because we remember, let us work to combat any discrimination or inequality in our society as we build a now richly diverse Ireland and a country that is mindful of playing its part in the global struggle for human decency. Let us remain vigilant and continue to share a common obligation to value and uphold human dignity, freedom, equality and democracy.
I would like to conclude by commending everyone participating in today's commemoration. I would like to thank Dublin City Council and the Lord Mayor of Dublin for facilitating and hosting this event in this beautiful venue. I know that many people have travelled from all over Ireland and abroad to be present here this evening and I am very privileged to be part of this important event.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir