View previous stories
	Holocaust Remembrance Day by UN News / Yad Vashem   27 January 2010   Top UN officials have stressed the importance of sharing the stories of the men, women and children who survived Nazi death camps as a way to encourage respect for diversity and human rights.   “Holocaust survivors will not be with us forever – but the legacy of their survival must live on,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message to mark the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.   “All of them carry a crucial message for all of us,” he stated. “A message about the triumph of the human spirit. A living testament that tyranny, though it may rise, will surely not prevail.   “We must preserve their stories through memorials, through education, most of all through robust efforts to prevent genocide and other grave crimes,” said the Secretary-General, pledging the full commitment of the UN to this cause.   Speaking at the opening of a special exhibition, Mr. Ban remarked that the blueprints for Auschwitz-Birkenau show just how many people it took to build “this enterprise of death,” from the Nazi leaders who commissioned the extermination camps and the architects and engineers who designed the gas chambers and crematoria, to the drivers who delivered the wood, the workers who hammered the nails and laid the bricks, and those who turned on the poison gas.   “This exhibition delivers a vital message that bears repeating again and again: the Holocaust did not just happen; it was planned,” said Mr. Ban. “The abominable crimes committed against so many millions of Jews and others were not just incidental casualties of war; they were its very intent.”   The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, delivered this statement on the occasion of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust:   “It is now more than 60 years since the systematic murder of one third of the Jewish people, as well as thousands of other victims, including Roma, Slavs, disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, communists and political dissidents. But the grotesque nature and scale of the Holocaust is in no way diminished by the passing of time.   Holocaust Remembrance Day serves as a stark reminder of what can happen when prejudice, hatred and racism are allowed to fester, or are deliberately used as a political tool. It should also remind us that complacency and indifference in the face of such trends can easily become a form of complicity.   A continued focus on the Holocaust helps us to remain alert to the dangers presented by contemporary outbreaks of anti-Semitism and various forms of vilification and discrimination targeting other specific racial, ethnic or social groups. Remembering the Holocaust, and how it came about, can – and should – help us to intervene much earlier in the escalating pattern of prejudice that can lead eventually to genocide. It is also an essential response to those who claim that the Holocaust never happened.   The 2005 United Nations resolution which proclaimed 27 January as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust also condemned all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur.   Holocaust Remembrance Day provides an occasion when all States can examine their own record of tackling these phenomena, and their progress – or lack of progress – in providing human rights for all, as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The best memorial for the millions of Holocaust victims would be a world where the dignity and rights of every person are protected – both in law and practice.   As we honour both the victims and the survivors of the Holocaust, let us pay a special tribute to all those, in many parts of the world, who not only strive to ensure that future generations are educated about the horrors of the Shoah, but also work tirelessly to combat discrimination of all sorts.   As we look back at this dark page of history, and subsequent atrocities and crimes of genocide, let us also urge policymakers to show greater commitment to advancing dialogue and respect among people of all cultures, religions and races.”   Jan. 27. 2010   Holocaust Survivors Testimonies. (Yad Vashem)   Holocaust Survivors are our main medium for the story of the Holocaust. Their testimonies play a central role in the understanding the events of the Holocaust as well as their significance.   Their testimonies often provide the sole source on many aspects of the devastation. Moreover, in contrast to documentation written by the planners and perpetrators of the mass destruction, the testimonies reflect the unique Jewish perspective on the Holocaust. Consequently, survivors’ testimonies are clearly an essential source for an in-depth understanding of the Shoah.   Testimonials afford us a unique historical source in two central ways: Primarily, as a source it is a first hand historical account of what the witness personally experienced and saw. Secondly, a testimonial provides a retrospective account distanced in time (as opposed to accounts written during the Holocaust). In recent decades, worldwide recognition of the importance of survivors’ testimonies has become widely recognized as a central source for understanding the Holocaust.   Yad Vashem, almost from its inception, has attempted to gather as many testimonies as possible from Holocaust survivors—not only for the sake of historical research, but also to perpetuate the personal stories. The Yad Vashem archives contain numerous testimonies several thousand of which are on videotape. Visit the related web page
	Women wage peace by UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women   Women War Peace is an internet portal containing a wealth of documentation on women, peace and security. Through this portal, UNIFEM strives to provide access to the information and analysis that is currently available on the impact of armed conflict on women and women"s role in peace-building.   To try to address the lack of accessible information, UNIFEM has created this portal, as a centralized repository of information from a wide variety of sources, with links to reports and data from the UN system, and also from experts, academics.   UNIFEM"s goal is to continue to support capacity-building of women"s peace networks and Civil Societies’ Organizations to enable women to seize opportunities for early engagement in peace building and post-conflict governance, and to exert leverage when demanding accountability.   UNIFEM will continue to advocate for gender awareness in conflict prevention and peace-building institutions on national, regional and global scales. It will move from awareness-raising about gender-specific experiences of conflict to strengthening accountability mechanisms to hold authorities answerable for the extent to which they include women, respond to their needs, and build a gender-equal peace.   NGO Resources: Throughout the site you will find further resources, contacts, news and analysis generated by non government organizations, which are provided through our partnership with the NGO information service http://www.peacewomen.org/ a project that links many NGO efforts coordinated by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the world’s oldest women’s peace organization. Visit the related web page
	View more stories