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Memorial Day in links
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Holocaust Memorial Day
Date: January, 2005, updated 2006 - 2012
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'It is estimated that six million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime.'
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Andrew Chapman looks at the
background to Holocaust Memorial Day and related
links on the internet
January 27, Holocaust Memorial Day, is the anniversary of the liberation
of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.
2010 was the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the concentration camp set up by the Nazis in southern Poland in 1940. A memorial museum at the world heritage site tells the grim story.
This occasion was first marked in 2000, as part of the Stockholm
Forum on Holocaust Education, an international conference promoting
awareness of holocaust education and human rights.
The Taskforce for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance
and Research was also promoted in Stockholm. This body has 16 member
countries, represented by both governmental and non-governmental
bodies.
Declaration
Members are committed to the Stockholm
Declaration which, in summary, asserts:
1. The Holocaust fundamentally
challenged the foundations of civilisation.
2. The magnitude of
the Holocaust must not be forgotten.
3. The international community
shares a responsibility to prevent any further atrocity of this
kind.
The Holocaust may also be referred to as
the Shoah. There is a certain controversy over the use of the term 'holocaust' (and, for that matter, genocide).
The word 'holocaust' itself dates back to Middle English, and was used to denote
sacrifice by fire. The word was later extended to mean any wholesale
massacre or destruction.
The term was first
used in the specific context of the mass murder of Jews by
the Nazis in the Second World War, in 1944.
In some countries, laws have been passed to prevent any other use
of the word. The term remains
controversial in other contexts of oppression.
It is estimated that at
least six million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime. Historyplace.com has a timeline of events documenting the Nazis' massacre of the Jews.
There are many resources on the internet to help people remember these horrific events, as
well as Yad
Vashem in Israel and the Holocaust
Memorial Museum in the United States.
There are other Holocaust museums across
the world.
As well as remembering the victims of the Holocaust of the Second
World War, Holocaust
Memorial Day is an opportunity to reflect on other victims of
mass genocide and to educate people so that lessons may be learnt
from the past.
Meaning, by Czeslaw Milosz
When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset. The true meaning, ready to be decoded. What never added up will add up,
What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.
And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other?
And on this earth there is nothing except this earth?
Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving
galaxies
And calls out, protests, screams.
Czeslaw Milosz
(translated by Robert Hass)
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