May it never be repeated

The “International Day of Memory” of the victims of the Holocaust was celebrated on 27 January. It was instituted to remember the date (27 January 1945) of the breaking down of the gates of the concentration camp at Auschwitz and to commemorate the Shoah, or systematic extermination by the Nazi regime of six million Jews and other groups of people considered “undesirable”, such as gipsies (Rom and Sinti), Christians, Communists, homosexuals and the mentally ill. If these categories are also added to the death toll, the total number of civilian victims of Nazism can be estimated between ten and fourteen million. In 2002 European Ministers of Education decided to create a “Day in memory of the Holocaust and of prevention of crimes against humanity”, while “The International Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust” was proclaimed by the United Nations with its Resolution 60/7 of 1st November 2005. A great conscienceJanuary 27, 1945. It can be remembered as a day of liberation. But it is good above all to remember what happened in those years in Europe and in the world. After all these years we still have to remember what happened. Not only to look at the past with perplexity. It will always be incomprehensible how it was possible for normal people to lose all the moral references and to treat other people as things without value, distroing and killing human persons as if they were garbage. To remember the millions that died and the hate to the Jewish people, to the gypsies and to the so many men and women of good will that refused to accept this same hate, it should make us to concern also for the present and for the future, because in spite of the amount that hatred scares us, we know that it still has to be won in so much parts and that the respect for the human life is not yet considered in all the circumstances. We don’t want it to be possible again, and for that we cannot stop being attentive to what happens, to what is said and taught to young generations. In the senseless wars that occurs in so many parts of the globe, but also in clinics and “clean places”, the attacks to the dignity of the human life continues. Sorrowfully in our world still millions of persons, some not yet born, are killed and often with the connivance of a society that seems to sleep. We reminded the Holocaust because we don’t want it to be possible again. But we also reminded it because, as Christians, we believe that hate cannot be answered with revenge and hate, but just with love and reconciliation. As the Holy Father remembered in 2006, when he visited the Concentration Camp of Auschwitz, “this is the reason because I am here: to implore the grace of the reconciliation”. It really will be a grace and men by themselves, without God, aren’t able to build it. Knowing that only love converts the man’s glance and his heart, we are certain that only letting God, Who is in Himself Love, entering in our lives, it will be possible to say “never again”. We implore to God that in Europe there may always be a great conscience of the terror that the hate to a concrete people or to the political opponents can generate, but also, and above all, that there may always be a great conscience of the dignity of human life and of love’s value. Only then, Auschwitz won’t happen again. Duarte Da CunhaCcee general secretary – Council of European Bishops’ Conferences A warning foreverOn behalf of the European Union the Presidency of the Council invites all countries to honour the memory of all Holocaust victims and to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau on the International Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th January. In accordance with the resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 1 November 2005 the European Union reaffirms that the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people, as well as the murder of countless members of other minorities, has to serve forever as a warning of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism as well as prejudice, and rejects any denial of the Holocaust as an historical event, either in full or in part.The Presidency of the Council of the European Union informs that the Holocaust Era Assets Conference will take place from 26 to 30 June 2009 in Prague and Terezín in the Czech Republic. The objective of the conference is not only to assess the progress made since the 1998 Washington Conference but mainly to give new impetus for further international cooperation and sharing of experience in this field with a special emphasis on education.Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union