2003 Learning from the past ~ lessons for today The Holocaust Memorial Day Committee in association with the Lord Mayor of Dublin and KNOW RACISM – The National Anti-Racism Awareness Programme Dublin City Hall ~ Sunday, 26th January 2003 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY To the Little Polish Boy standing with his arms up Excerpt from poem by Holocaust survivor Peter Fischl about the 1943 roundup of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto I would like to be an artist So I could make a painting of you Little Polish Boy Standing with your little hat On your head The Star of David On your coat Standing in the ghetto With your arms up As many Nazi machine guns Point at you I am not a composer But I will write a composition For five trillion trumpets So it will blast the ear drums Of this world. The world Who heard nothing. I Am Sorry That It was you And not me. Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY UACHTARÁN NA hÉIREANN P RESIDENT OF I RELAND MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT McALEESE In marking the twenty-seventh January as Holocaust Memorial Day we, as civilised nations, are paying homage to all the victims of the Holocaust. It is also an opportunity to pay tribute to all the remarkable and courageous people who bravely stood against the forces of evil. Here in Ireland we can be proud to count Irish citizens among those exceptional people who saved thousands of lives. I would like to pay a special tribute to the Irish recipients of the Righteous Among the Nations title, an honour bestowed on those individuals who epitomise selflessness. Holocaust Memorial Day is a stark and harsh reminder of where racism, bigotry and prejudice can lead. We as a nation must concentrate our efforts and fortify our resolve to build a society that is truly inclusive and which embraces cultural diversity. Racism and hatred have no place in twenty-first century Ireland – a message which is echoed in your theme Learning from the past – lessons for today. I would like to commend all those involved in organising this event and I wish them well with all future endeavours. Mary McAleese President of Ireland page 1 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY COUNCILLOR DERMOT LACEY LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN A Nuclear-Free City Office of the Lord Mayor 16 Castle Street, Dublin 2 I feel privileged to host the first of what I am sure will become an annual Holocaust Memorial Day in Ireland. In January 2000, on the fifty-fifth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz- Birkenau extermination camp, forty-four countries, including the Republic of Ireland, signed the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust. Accordingly, we are gathered here this evening to pay homage to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and to honour those who stood against it. We remember the six million Jews - the men, women and one and a half million children - who were exterminated in the death camps, in the ghettos, in the forests, in the streets and in their homes, solely by reason of their birth and of their faith. And we remember the millions of other innocent victims, including political, religious and ethnic minorities, homosexuals, and people with disabilities. Only by remembering the horrors that man is capable of inflicting on man will we truly learn the lessons for today as we strive to eradicate the scourge of racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and intolerance from our midst. I wish to acknowledge the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Committee and everyone else involved in organising this event. Cllr. Dermot Lacey Lord Mayor of Dublin Telephone: 676 1845 & 672 2910. Fax: 679 4484. e-mail: [email protected] web: www.dublincity.ie page 2 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY DUBLIN CITY HALL ~ SUNDAY, 26TH JANUARY 2003 Programme • Introductory remarks, Yanky Fachler • Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, read by John Bowman • Opening address, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Dermot Lacey • Guest Speakers: Michael McDowell TD, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Dick Roche TD, Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach with responsibility for European Affairs • Choral interlude, Christ Church Cathedral Choir • Quotation from Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller, read by Senator David Norris • To The Little Polish Boy Standing With His Arms Up, read by Ingrid Craigie • Excerpt from Faraway Home by Marilyn Taylor, read by Jason Druker • Denis Johnston’s account of the liberation of Buchenwald, read by Jennifer Johnston • Children of Auschwitz, read by Nadia Salem • Shoa, written and read by Máire Mhac an tSaoi • Bob and Han Collis, read by Suzi Diamond • Holocaust poems from The Gossamer Wall, written and read by Micheal O'Siadhail • Quotation from Simon Wiesenthal, read by John Bowman • Go Home From This Place And Tell Your Children, written and read by Paddy Fitzgibbon • One Minute of Silence • Choral interlude, Christ Church Cathedral Choir • Candle-lighting ceremony in memory of Holocaust victims – Representatives of the people with disabilities – Representatives of the homosexual community – Representatives of the political victims – Representatives of the Christian victims and the Righteous Among The Nations – Representatives of ethnic minorities – Representatives of the six million Jews • Prayer for the Repose of the Souls of the Departed, recited by the Very Rev. Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Pearlman, Chief Rabbi of Ireland • El Malay Rachamim, recited by Cantor Alwyn Shulman • Closing remarks, Yanky Fachler page 3 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust Summary of the Declaration by 44 countries, including the Republic of Ireland, issued in January 2000, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945. We, the governments attending the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, recognise that the Holocaust was a tragically defining episode of the 20th century, a crisis for European civilisation and a universal catastrophe for humanity. In declaring that the Holocaust fundamentally challenged the foundations of civilisation, we share a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, and to honour those who stood against it. The horrors that engulfed the Jewish people and other victims of the Nazis must forever be seared in our collective memory. With humanity still scarred by genocide, anti-semitism, ethnic cleansing, racism, xenophobia and other expressions of hatred and discrimination, we share a solemn responsibility to fight against these evils. Together with our European partners and the wider international community, we share a commitment to remember all the victims who perished, to respect the survivors still with us, and to reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for a democratic and tolerant society, free of the evils of prejudice and other forms of bigotry. page 4 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Excerpt from the address at the Holocaust Extract from Children of Auschwitz, Commemoration ceremony at Terenure by Laura Hillman, sister of Rosel Siev. Synagogue on 26th April 1995 by Taoiseach John Bruton. I wake up at night hear the cries We in Ireland have not been immune from the still bigotry and the indifference which manifested itself children, in Europe this century. Ireland’s doors were not always children freely open to those families and individuals fleeing walking to the crematoria. from persecution and death. Some people did find They carried their refuge and comfort in Ireland, but their numbers dolls were not very great. We must acknowledge the teddy bears consequences of this indifference. Tonight, on behalf wide eyed of the Irish Government and people, I honour the or sleepy looking memory of those millions of European Jews who bewildered died in the Holocaust. I also recall the gypsies and crying out the homosexual community who were marked down Mutti for extermination and all those who were persecuted Mama for resisting the Nazi tyranny. Mamutchka Mama where have you gone? In response to a student's question, How could this happen? Lutheran pastor Martin Pink pyjamas blue nightgowns Niemoeller wrote this response after the fluffy dresses Holocaust. Niemoeller was arrested in 1937 shabby dresses for preaching against the Nazis, and spent sailor suits until 1945 in Sachsenhausen and Dachau shoeless concentration camps. unkempt or neat looking First they came for the Communists, they walk by. But I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. I hear their measured steps Then they came for the Socialists and Trade tramping to the crematoria Unionists, watched by SS guards But I was not a Socialist or Trade Unionist, so I did Who ruled their world now not speak out. And who had taken their mothers and fathers away. Then they came for the Jews, But I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. Still Then they came for me, through the gaggling of the geese But by then there was no one left to speak out I hear for me. The haunting cries of the children Of Auschwitz. The door of the crematorium is shut. One last cry Now silence. page 5 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Hubert Butler day I touched upon the mystery of iniquity whose Hubert Butler, from Kilkenny, was a revelation was to mark the end of one era and the beginning of another. The dream which Western classical scholar, archaeologist and essayist. man conceived in the 18th century, whose dawn he After teaching English in Alexandria and thought he saw in 1789, and which, until August Leningrad, he went to Vienna in 1938 to 2nd 1914, had grown stronger with the process of work at the Quaker Centre where the enlightenment and the discoveries of science - this Religious Society of Friends had launched dream vanished finally for me before those an international effort to relieve those trainloads of little children.