Holocaust Memorial Day
This year's Holocaust Memorial was themed "Same. But different", with the aim of raising awareness of our common hunmanity; that it wasn't just Jews who were killed by the Nazis; and that genocide still occurs. According to a report commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust there is massive ignorance among Britons as to the true nature of the Holocaust. Quoted in The Voice,
"Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chairman, Dr Stephen Smith said: “Prejudice is not a problem for other people. It affects us all, be it because of our religion, our race, our sexuality or just our way of life. We must stand up to discrimination and ensure such atrocities are part of our past and not our future.
“This year on Holocaust Memorial Day, we invite the country to celebrate what makes them unique, and recognise that we are all the same, but different. We are an impressively diverse nation, and ought to take pride in this fact.
“We are calling on everyone to light a candle in memory of all those who have been persecuted in genocides.”
Following Normblog's copious and very useful links, I have found an Auschwitz Alphabet, a trailer for the film Shoah, an account of a trip to Auschwitz, and an interview with Anthony Julius on the "new" anti-Semitism.Ms B is saddened to admit that she increasingly hears remarks that sound anti-Semitic even from friends; and that they are often couched in rationalist terms, so that a comment may be ugly but is framed to sit unexceptionally within a specific conversation; or they are political, normally about the situation between Israel and Palestine, but somehow seem to extend further than that. Julius talks about anti-Semitism as being like a liquid, of which even a drop can begin to infect in subtle ways any liquid into which it is put.
Bearing in mind the continuing depressing - and to the Baroque mind so ill-advised - boycott of the Holocaust Memorial by the Muslim Council of Britain, I am also happy, thanks to Black Triangle, to bring you this quote from Elie Wiesel's 1986 Nobel acceptance speech:
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentors, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religions, or political views, that place - at that moment - become the centre of the universe.”
5 comments:
Here's someone who carries on Elie Wiesel's ideal:
Israeli Holocaust trustee blasts Hebron settlers
Ms B
I am sorry that someone has seen fit to have a little snipe.
Who was it that said, "enough of blood and tears"? He's right. Enough!
Like a speech about global warming by Tony Blair, we need to measure the pious words against the man and his actions. You would never guess from Wiesel’s eloquent rhetoric that he was, for example, a man bitterly opposed to any mention of Gypsies as victims in Washington’s Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was also against allowing any Gypsy on to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
More about Wiesel here
Hi guys. Caratacus, hello and welcome. I did read that piece i nthe Scotsman, and like Kris I assumed it was a dig - but, well, what is the point? I'm not saying and I don't think anyone is saying that you can't criticise anything any Jewish person has done.
Kris, too right. Enough! (And by the way, NO STARBUCKS IN STOKE NEWINGTON! They have a petition. Everybody sign please!)
Ellis dear, I think that, rather than do an expose of Elie Wiesel, whose rightness or wrongness does not have a bearing on the thrust of today's conversation - times have changed, the cultural landscape has totally changed - I'd rather you listened to the very interesting San Francisco call-in programme on which Anthony Julius spoke so interestingly about the current resurgence in anti-Semitism. (Though, rather like my friend Michael Donaghy when asked about "New Formalism," Julius says "the old anti-Semitism never really went away".)
By the way, I'm really glad you've commented here. But you do come across increasingly as just good old anti-Semitic. I do feel I have to say that. Anybody who has any sense knows that all this "anti" business is the whole goddamn problem and that is why the MCB is so misguided.
And shouldn't you enable comments on your own page? I often feel frustrated by that. Sometimes I just want to tell you something's funny, or true, or say we like the same book.
Caratacus, by the way, I meant at FIRST I asumed it was a dog. Then I realised I didn't think it iwas. The article was interesting.
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