Israel's leaders, with Iran on their minds, vowed never again to allow the "hand of evil" to kill Jews, as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day yesterday.
In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated 27 January - the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau as International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD), an annual day of commemoration to honor the victims of the Nazi era. Ceremonies were held in many countries in the world and broadcasted on all major TV networks.
I would like to share with you some of the speeches made yesterday:
Addressing the Reichstag, President Shimon Peres became the first Israeli president to choose Holocaust Remembrance Day to address the nation responsible for the murder of six million Jews on what was described as a "groundbreaking occasion" in both Jerusalem and Berlin. Traditionally, .German leaders have traveled to Israel on this day, and given speeches in the Knesset and the significance of the occasion was not lost on the those gathered in the Reichstag, a symbol of postwar transparency and democracy.
At times during his 30-minute speech, President Peres, who was wearing a skullcap, reduced some parliamentarians to tears with his personal account of the Holocaust.
His words – a mixture of emotion and diplomacy – flowed as he drew parallels between the dangers of the regime in Tehran and the Nazi dictatorship, and referred to Germany's moral duty, as the country that once tried to destroy the Jews, to protect Israel from outside attack.
Speaking in Hebrew in an address broadcast live on television and radio, Peres recalled saying farewell to his grandfather before he, as a child, was sent by train to Israel to escape the Nazi troops approaching his hometown, Wiszniewo, in Belarus.
"I remember his last words to me, instructing me: 'My boy, always stay a Jew'. The locomotive whistled and the train pulled away ... it was the last time that I saw him."
As the Nazis marched into Wiszniewo, Peres said, "they ordered all Jews [including his grandparents] to gather in the Synagogue ... the doors were sealed from the outside and the wooden building was set alight, and the only thing that was left of the whole community were red-hot ashes and smoke."
He said Holocaust Remembrance Day "not only represents a memorial day for the victims, not only the pangs of conscience of humankind in the face of the incomprehensible atrocity that took place, but also of the tragedy that derived from the procrastination in taking action".
In a reference to Iran and its threats towards Israel, he added: "Never again ignore bloodthirsty dictators, hiding behind demagogical masks, who utter murderous slogans.
"The threats to annihilate a people and a nation are voiced in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, which are held by irresponsible hands."
Earlier during his three-day visit, Peres visited platform 17 of Grunewald station, in Berlin, from which thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps.
Laying a wreath with Peres, the German president, Horst Köhler, stressed the "unique relationship" between Germany and Israel, saying: "The responsibility resulting from the Shoah is and remains part of the German identity".
Speaking in Poland at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, liberated by Soviet troops 65 years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a strong Israeli state was the only guarantee for the security of his people.
“From the cursed ground at Auschwitz, Birkenau and other camps rise the voices of our brothers and sisters, our people who choked to death and were burned and murdered,” said the prime minister, in English, wishing “decency, truth and hope ... for all mankind” before switching to Hebrew, “the language the Nazis sought to exterminate.”
“Remember what Amalek did to you, I have come here today from Jerusalem to tell you: We will never forget. We will not allow the Holocaust deniers or those who desecrate [Jewish] graves and signs to erase or distort [our] memory.
Though the “Nazi Amalek” is almost entirely a ghost of the past, A new Amalek is appearing and once again threatening to annihilate the Jews. We will not allow it ... We will never forget and always stand guard.
Murderous hatred must be stopped in its tracks, stopped right from the beginning. All countries in the world must learn this lesson, just as we did after losing a third of our people in blood-soaked Europe. We learned that the only guarantee for the protection of our people is the State of Israel and its army, the IDF,” Netanyahu declared, warning that never again would the existence of Israel and the Jewish people be threatened.
"Israel, he said, must stand at the forefront of all civilized nations and warn them about impending danger – while also preparing to defend itself against all threats. “I promise, as head of the Jewish state, that never again will we allow the hand of evil to sever the life of our people and our state,” he solemnly added.
“Am Yisrael Chai, we have returned to our homeland, to the land of our forefathers, to Jerusalem, our capital. We have converged from all corners of the world, Holocaust survivors, Arab Jews, Jews from former Soviet Union states, Ethiopian Jews,” Netanyahu said, choosing frosty Poland as the location for his rebuke to those who claim the Jewish population of Israel is comprised mostly of emigrants from Europe.
We bow our heads in memory [of Holocaust victims] and raise our heads as our flag waves with its two blue stripes and the Star of David at its center. We still haven't lost our hope.”.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who declined a Polish invitation to attend yesterday's ceremony, warned in a message read by Russia's education minister of attempts to rewrite history by downplaying the role of the Red Army.
in defeating Hitler's Germany at huge human cost. The Auschwitz ceremony was widely shown on Russian state media, while Russian Jewish groups organized memorial services across the country.
U.S. President Barack Obama, in a filmed message, thanked survivors for finding "the strength to come back again, so many years later, despite the horror you saw here, the suffering you endured here, and the loved ones you lost here."
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