international holocaust remembrance day 2018

'I speak without hatred or bitterness,' the Romanian-born US-naturalized writer said. In 2000, for the first time, an Auschwitz survivor addressed members of parliament and guests on the memorial day: Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel: 'How to understand the cult of hatred and death?' 'And I can't tell you who will be the Jews and who will be the Germans the next time around,' Bauer warned. But Bauer said 'the murder of Jews was universal, intended to be worldwide.' And he warned that it could happen again, certainly not in the same form, but perhaps in a very similar way. Bauer, who had been born in Prague in 1926, recalled other genocides that shaped the 20th century: Rwanda in 1994, Cambodia from 1975-79 and Armenia in 1915-16.Īll of these genocides were perpetrated in specific, although sometimes large, territories. On this day in 1998, Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer addressed the Bundestag, the German parliament. Former President of Germany Roman Herzog launched the Holocaust Remembrance Day Image: Getty Images/A. This is also reflected in the official designation of the 'Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism,' which was introduced by then-German President Roman Herzog.Īt the launch, President Herzog said that 'Victims of the Holocaust' would have been 'too narrow a term, as Nazi racial policies affected more people than just the Jews.' The chosen date was January 27, the day the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet soldiers in 1945.

The attempt to adequately put this betrayal of humanity perpetrated by Germans into words will always be a challenge. And outside the Jewish state, this crime against humanity is called the Holocaust, derived from the Greek for 'sacrificially burned.' In Israel, 'Shoah,' meaning 'catastrophe' or 'great misfortune,' is used to describe the event. Genocide: Is this the appropriate word to describe the systematic annihilation of 6 million Jews between 19? Clearly, it does not go far enough.

International holocaust remembrance day 2018