In comments on Tuesday night at a service commemorating victims of the Nazi Holocaust, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the resurgence of anti-Semitism, urging people around the world to “stand firm against hate and bigotry anywhere and everywhere.”
The UN head said he was alarmed to learn that barely half of adults worldwide have heard of the Holocaust, which saw the murder of 6 million Jews, comprising one-third of the Jewish people, and millions of others during World War II.
The lack of knowledge among the younger generation “is worse still,” he said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Our response to ignorance must be education,” Guterres said. “Governments everywhere have a responsibility to teach about the horrors of the Holocaust.”
He spoke at the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Service at Park East Synagogue on the eve of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, which was held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in November 2005 establishing the annual commemoration and chose Jan. 27, the day that the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by troops from the Soviet Union in 1945.
Guterres said that the rise in anti-Semitism — “the oldest form of hate and prejudice” — has seen new reports of physical attacks, verbal abuse, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, synagogues vandalized, and last week the hostage-taking of the rabbi and members of Beth Israel Congregation in Colleyville, Texas.
Around the world, Jewish boys are told not to wear a kippa — the skullcap worn by observant Jews — “for fear of being assaulted,” and there are conspiracy theories devolving into “heinous anti-Semitic tropes” and “deeply disturbing attempts to deny, distort or minimize the Holocaust,” especially on the Internet, he said.
Guterres welcomed the UN General Assembly’s adoption on Thursday last week of a resolution condemning Holocaust denial, and urging all nations and social media companies to “take active measures to combat anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial or distortion.”
Rabbi Arthur Schneier — a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor and Park East Synagogue’s senior rabbi — spoke of witnessing the burning of his synagogue in Vienna, his birthplace, on Kristallnacht — Nov. 9, 1938.
It was the beginning of the Holocaust, the night Hitler and his henchmen destroyed every temple in Germany and Austria.
“Hate mongers” always target houses of worship, Schneier said, adding that the perpetrator of last week’s hostage-taking in Texas flew from England “to commit this vicious attack.”
The hostages managed to escape and 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, who had ranted against Jews, was killed by police.
Schneier said his hopes and dreams that no other people would have to suffer the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews have been “shattered by persistent anti-Semitism, xenophobia, racism, all forms of hatred and Holocaust denial.”
This has been exacerbated today “by societal upheaval, social media and pandemic conspiracy theories.”
“Distorted Holocaust analogies can only be countered through education,” the rabbi said. “Children are born to love, and they are taught how to hate. They must be guided not just to tolerate ‘others,’ but to respect and accept their neighbor.”
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