January 27, the day of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, was declared by the resolution 60/7 of the United Nations General Assembly on November 1, 2005 to be the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day in memory of its victims. That vote was the moment when the representatives of all humanity committed themselves to remember the atrocity that will be a stain on human history forever. The dramas of all the massacres of the past converge in him. The systematic killing with industrialized efficiency in factories of death of six million civilians, including one and a half million children and adolescents, simply because they were Jewish is an unspeakable manifestation of hatred and spiritual blindness.
But memory alone means little if it does not lead to commitments and actions to prevent repetitions of the abomination. Anti-Semitism, the denial of the Holocaust, and innumerable acts of cruelty, atrocity and contempt for people are still part of the present reality.
For a short time after humanity becomes aware of horrible cruelty, the first instinct is to exclaim: Never again! But after that first initial reaction, as time passes, people become distracted by daily cares, memories fade, and apathy grows. Although the word “genocide” was coined in the wake of the Holocaust, it tragically has become appropriate to describe subsequent mass killings of millions of human beings in Rwanda, Cambodia, and elsewhere. “Never again” can and has become “once again.” That is why the story of the Holocaust must be narrated forever. It must be constantly analyzed and inscribed in the minds and hearts of everyone.
Never again! It is a demand placed upon us by the unbearable silence of Auschwitz.
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