Epoch Times: Holocaust Memorial Calls on World to Renounce Indifference

By Joan Delaney
Epoch Times Victoria Staff

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL: An Orthodox Jew looks at photographs of Jewish victims of the Nazis in the Hall of Names exhibit in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem, Israel. (David Silverman/Getty Images)

The horror of the holocaust was brought to life for many who attended a Holocaust Memorial ceremony at the Victoria legislature on Tuesday afternoon. Hosted by the Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism Wally Opal, the memorial is an annual event held in provincial legislatures and the Canadian Parliament to commemorate those who perished in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Premier Gordon Campbell, the first to address the audience of about 140 which included over 90 holocaust survivors, said the Holocaust was such a profound tragedy that it defies explanation even decades later. Calling the Holocaust "a cold, dark stain spilled across the great woven blanket of human history," Campbell said it's our shared responsibility to remember a time "when hate ruled."

During the ceremony, six Holocaust survivors lit six candles in memory of the six million Jews who died, and Campbell presented a special certificate to Mark Weintraub, chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). CJC was instrumental in having April 25th set aside as Holocaust Memorial Day.

"As we watch so many precious people be ravaged by hatred and greed today, the lessons of the Holocaust, the Shoah , are profoundly relevant," said Weintraub.

Weintraub pointed out that the Holocaust began not in the gas chambers but with words. He said that it's vital to preserve the structures we have built in society to prevent the spread of hate. The so-called "final solution" was able to incubate and grow in a Germany that was "the best educated, the most modern and the most technically competent of all nations" at the time. He said every aspect of German and other societies were complicit, including the legal and medical professions, business and academia, the military and the civil service.

"Those of us who didn't directly live through the Holocaust are unable to comprehend the limitless evil of the nazi ideology," says Weintraub. "How was it possible for so many to refuse to see the humanity of their neighbours?"

Rita Axelrod spoke of how as a child in Romania she experienced discrimination and persecution, which led her to conclude that the world was "indifferent and uncaring." She said the love of her family and her strong Jewish faith were all she had in those dark days. She believes it's a miracle she survived, and said her greatest concern as a survivor is that the Holocaust may be forgotten.

"This event offers an important opportunity to ensure remembrance and helps us to reflect on the moral responsibility of individuals as well as communities and governments," said Axelrod.

Rick Kool, President of the Victoria Holocaust Society, read a moving passage from a new Jewish liturgy, which he said was intended to assist in the memorialization of what happened to the Jews of Europe.

"Our parents were not meant to live," said Kool. "We were not meant to exist,"

Millmann's mother was 21 when the Germans bombed Warsaw. Her mother's twin sister was forced by the Nazis to dig her own grave, and her uncle was hacked to death by their neighbours while other family members were forced to watch. Millmann's grandfather died of a broken heart that night, and soon after her two-year-old cousin was buried alive. Her father's family met a similar fate. Her parents survived only because they were taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to the Gulag in Siberia.

Citing the genocides of Rwanda and Darfur, Millmann said the "human monster" is not far beneath the surface of society's civilised veneer. She used to believe a day would come when the Holocaust would no longer need to be remembered, but the reality is that there are now more than 6,000 websites in existence dedicated to hatred, complete with recipes for mass murder.

"The world we live in is ever more frightening," said Millmann. "Public hatred of Jews is acceptable again and it has led to murder…. Fascism is back, and it's spreading."

Millmann spoke about Elie Wiesel's contention that the opposite to love in this world is not hate but indifference, and the only weapon to fight indifference is memory.

"We have so much work to do, and we cannot do it alone. We must all unite, as we must all be witnesses, and struggle beyond our human weaknesses. So let us all renounce indifference."