UN Foundation Supports UN Secretary-General's
Commitment to
Lead a UN that Fights Anti-Semitism
WASHINGTON—This week
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is in
the Middle East to reinforce his commitment
to the peace process in that region. The
Secretary-General today offered remarks
at the inauguration of the Holocaust History
Museum at Yad Vashem in Israel to remember
what was lost and to remind the world
of the UN’s “responsibility
to combat hatred and intolerance.”
(For complete remarks see below. Remarks
under embargo until March 15, 2005 at
11 a.m. E.T.)
"This historic visit
of the UN Secretary-General to the sacred
grounds of Yad Vashem is testimony to
his commitment to abhor intolerance, a
binding principle of the United Nations.
Kofi Annan has led the institution to
appreciate the important role that Israel
plays as a member state, as a democratic
nation, and as a symbol of the good that
can arise from evil, in the wake of war,"
said Timothy E. Wirth, UN Foundation President.
The Secretary-General’s
visit to Israel marks an important opportunity
to pursue peace in the Middle East by
working to prevent further violence and
denounce terrorism. During the trip, he
met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas.
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####
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
-- REMARKS AT INAUGURATION OF THE HOLOCAUST
HISTORY MUSEUM AT YAD VASHEM
Jerusalem, 15 March 2005
President Katsav, Prime
Minister Sharon, Minister Livnat, [of
Education]
Mr. Amrami, [Director-General, Yad Vashem]
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to thank the
Government of Israel and Yad Vashem for
inviting us to this ceremony.
The Holocaust occupies a
unique place in the history of the United
Nations. The very name of the Organization
was coined to describe the alliance fighting
to end the Nazi regime.
In April 1945, just days
after delegates gathered in San Francisco
to draft our Charter, the death camp at
Dachau was liberated.
Hitler’s death, the
end of the war in Europe, the first newsreel
footage of emaciated camp survivors –
these were the daily dispatches that framed
the work of the framers.
Worldwide revulsion at the
genocide – at the systematic murder
of six million Jews and millions of others
-- was also a driving force behind the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Our global mission of peace,
freedom and human dignity was literally
forged in fire – in fact the most
awful fires humankind has ever seen.
As Aharon Appelfeld wrote
recently, “Such a colossal crime
can be committed only if you mobilize
the darkest dark of the soul.”
Today, our most fundamental
task is to remember loved ones lost, cities
and cultures destroyed, to ensure that
their fates are recorded and that they
are never forgotten.
It is also to ensure that
no such horror happens again anywhere.
But our work for remembrance
is also a yearning for wisdom.
And it is an attempt to
project forward, to future generations,
a different vision of human existence.
The United Nations has a
sacred responsibility to combat hatred
and intolerance.
A United Nations that fails
to be at the forefront of the fight against
anti-Semitism and other forms of racism
denies its history and undermines its
future.
That obligation binds us
to the Jewish people, and to the State
of Israel, which rose, like the United
Nations itself, from the ashes of the
Holocaust.
And it binds us to all people
who have been, or may be, threatened with
a similar fate.
The United Nations must
remain eternally vigilant.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The number of Holocaust
survivors who are still with us is dwindling
fast.
Our children are growing
up just as rapidly. They are beginning
to ask their first questions about injustice.
What will we tell them?
Will we say, “That’s
just the way the world is”?
Or will we say instead,
“We are striving to change things
– to find a better way”?
Let this museum stand as
testimony that we are striving for a better
way.
Let Yad Vashem inspire us
to keep striving, as long as the darkest
dark stalks the face of the earth.
