Holocaust remembrance helps fight racism

“Our collaboration with the Human Rights Commission’s ‘Give nothing to racism’ campaign shows how strongly Holocaust remembrance contributes to the aim of improving New Zealand society,” Holocaust Centre of New Zealand director Inge Woolf said today.

“Racism against Jews – antisemitism, leading to Holocaust – was deliberately encouraged in Germany by the Nazi regime. The World War that followed was disastrous for the Jews of Europe, and for the whole world in widespread death, damage and displacement.

“As Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy has said so forcefully, we must ‘give nothing to racism, give it no tolerance, give it no acceptance and give it no welcome.’

“While United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day is one of particular sadness and reflection for New Zealand Jews, we offer our people’s tragic experiences to all of Aotearoa New Zealand as an example of what must never be allowed to happen here.

“The Holocaust Centre of New Zealand stands strongly with the Human Rights Commission, NZ National Commission for UNESCO, local bodies and the Jewish community in their mission of education and information to keep our country free of the ugliness and destructiveness of racism,” Mrs Woolf concluded.

United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be commemorated on Friday 26 January with public ceremonies in Wellington at 1pm at the Holocaust Memorial at Makara Cemetery; in Christchurch at 12 noon at the World Peace Bell in the Botanic Gardens; and in Hamilton.

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