New Zealand honours victims of the Holocaust

Press Release: New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO

New Zealand honours victims of the Holocaust

The United Nations International Day of Commemoration to honour victims of the Holocaust was marked with ceremonies in Wellington today, 27 January 2008.

Representatives from the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, the Wellington Regional Jewish Council and the Holocaust Research and Education Centre joined others at the Holocaust Memorial, Makara Cemetery. This was followed by a ceremony hosted at Parliament’s Grand Hall by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, the Honourable Chris Finlayson.

“Today marks the 64th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camps and the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO takes great pride in being associated with this International Day of Remembrance,” says Deputy Chair of the National Commission, Dr Andrew Matthews.

“The Auschwitz death camps are listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List with the following citation:
‘Auschwitz - Birkenau, monument to the deliberate genocide of the Jews by the Nazi regime (Germany 1933-1945) and to the deaths of countless others, bears irrefutable evidence to one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. It is also a monument to the strength of the human spirit which, in appalling conditions of adversity, resisted the efforts of the German Nazi regime to suppress freedom and free thought and to wipe out whole races. The site is a key place of memory for the whole of humankind, for the holocaust, racist policies and barbarism; it is a place of our collective memory of this dark chapter in the history of humanity, of transmission to younger generations, and a sign of warning of the many threats and tragic consequences of extreme ideologies and denial of human dignity.’”

In 2007 UNESCO’s General Conference requested member states to place education at the centre of the work for remembrance in order to keep the memory alive.

“Through learning programmes about the Holocaust, our younger generation comes to value the importance of tolerance and freedom in a just society. This knowledge is essential to ensure that such atrocities never take place again,” said Dr Matthews.
Quality education for all, a cornerstone of UNESCO’s work internationally, is about learning to live together.

Today at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, a commemoration ceremony will take place which will feature the opening of a special exhibition entitled A la vie! (To Life!) presented by the OSE association (Œuvre de secours aux enfants). It retraces the lives of 15 of the children who were found by American soldiers when they entered Buchenwald. The Paris Symphonic Orchestra will then perform Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony n°3, “Kaddish”, with a new libretto written and recited by Samuel Pisar.

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