General Assembly Official Records Twenty-Eighth Special Session
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United Nations A/S-28/PV.2 General Assembly Official Records Twenty-eighth special session 2nd meeting Monday, 24 January 2005, 3 p.m. New York President: Mr. Ping ............................................... (Gabon) The meeting was called to order at 3.10 p.m. Sachsenhausen are names that evoke images of horror and human degradation. They are a call for us to do our utmost to prevent this from happening again. Agenda item 7 (continued) The United Nations was founded at the end of the Commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Second World War — a war during which genocide liberation of the Nazi concentration camps was committed on a massive scale. Its prime objective was to prevent such a conflict from ever happening The President (spoke in French): I give the floor again. Three years later, the General Assembly adopted to His Excellency Mr. Olav Kjorven, Deputy Minister a convention under which States accepted the for Foreign Affairs of Norway. obligation to prevent genocide and to punish that most Mr. Kjorven (Norway): This special session of heinous of crimes. the General Assembly has been convened to In his speech to the Stockholm International commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation Forum on the prevention of genocide, in January 2004, of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. It the Secretary-General said: is a unique opportunity for the international community to remember and to recommit itself to the founding “There can be no more important issue, and principles and ideas on which the United Nations is no more binding obligation, than preventing based. genocide. Indeed this may be considered one of the original purposes of the United Nations”. The Nazi concentration and extermination camps were part of a scheme to annihilate the Jews, and also It is important to remember, reflect on and learn the Roma people and others deemed undesirable due to from what happened 60 years ago. In Norway, as in ethnic origin, religious beliefs or for other reasons. We other countries, the aim of the occupying Nazi regime are paying tribute to the memory of the victims who was to completely destroy the Jewish community. Very perished, and expressing our respect for and solidarity few of those who were arrested and deported — often with the survivors, whether they are in Israel, which with active help from Norwegians — ever returned, rose from the ashes and the bones of the Holocaust, or and a community and a rich cultural heritage were lost. in other lands. Too few Norwegians tried to aid the persecuted or to help them to escape. After half a century, the horrors of the concentration camps are still close enough in time for We need to look at ourselves — at the racism, the survivors to be able to bear witness to what they discrimination and the anti-Semitism in our own experienced. Auschwitz, Treblinka, Dachau and countries. We need to look at our educational systems This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the interpretation of speeches delivered in the other languages. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room C-154A. Corrections will be issued after the end of the session in a consolidated corrigendum. 05-21662 (E) *0521662* A/S-28/PV.2 and make new generations aware of what happened in When Allied troops entered the gates of the past so as to prevent it from happening in the Auschwitz and other death camps, the world was future. The Declaration on the Holocaust adopted by shocked by the atrocities that came to light. Mankind’s the Stockholm International Forum in 2000 was a understanding of history and of the degree of evil that milestone. It committed us to promoting education human beings are capable of has never been the same about the Holocaust in our schools and communities, since. Since then, 27 January — the day of the and to creating awareness in society as a whole. liberation of the concentration camp — has been a day of commemoration and reminder. Auschwitz has In Norway it has become increasingly common become a symbol for the Holocaust, and many nations for Norwegian school classes to visit former commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz with a extermination and concentration camps in Germany special Holocaust remembrance day. and Poland, such as Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck. In 2001, the Centre for Studies of the This commemorative special session of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Norway was General Assembly of the world Organization that was established as a national institution in the field of founded to prevent the recurrence of such monumental Holocaust research, documentation, information and crimes is of particular importance. Austria actively education. The Centre was part of the restitution by the supported the holding of this special session. We thank Norwegian Government for the economic losses and the Secretary-General for his efforts to make it the suffering of the Norwegian Jews during the Second possible. World War. Standing here as the representative of Austria, I The Task Force for International Cooperation on feel two emotions — the agony of knowing that our Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, country lost so many of its Jewish citizens to the which consists of representatives of Governments and Holocaust, and the pain of realizing that far too many educational and research institutions, plays an Austrians took part in that greatest of all crimes. More important role in raising international awareness in this than 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed by the National field. Socialist regime. They were deported to places of unspeakable horror, where, we must admit, some of But as important as this is, nothing can their neighbours might have marched them into gas compensate for lack of determination by us, the United chambers, lined them up against execution pits or Nations, in doing our utmost to stop ongoing tragedies starved them in ghettos. and prevent future crimes against humanity. To this cause we must recommit ourselves today. Auschwitz stands for the destruction of all human values that mankind took pride in. The killing of 1.35 I would like to conclude by quoting from the million Jews, 20,000 Sinti and Roma and 100,000 other Declaration on the Holocaust: inmates, persecuted by the National Socialist regime “Our commitment must be to remember the on racial and political grounds, or simply for being victims who perished, respect the survivors still different, represents a break with civilization itself. with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common The commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.” of the liberation demonstrates that Auschwitz has its The President (spoke in French): I now give the importance not only for remembrance in European floor to His Excellency Mr. Franz Morak, State countries but also as a place of universal remembrance. Secretary, Office of the Federal Chancellor of Austria. Today it stands, on a global scale, for the disastrous consequences of tyranny and contempt for the value Mr. Morak (Austria): Elie Wiesel reminded us and the dignity of the individual human being. that we must speak out so that the world listens, and that we must speak out so that the world learns. Sixty Memorials at places where the most heinous years ago, the victims of Auschwitz were waiting in crimes of the Nazi regime were committed help us to vain for the world to speak out. That must never realize the dimensions of the events and to connect the happen again. inconceivable number of victims of the Nazi genocide with the fate of individual persons. 2 A/S-28/PV.2 Memorials are important, but, after all, they The Nazi regime not only committed crimes remain where they are. Education is a far more against humanity on a scale unprecedented in the powerful tool. Education reaches into every school and history of human civilization, it was also responsible every home. Our young people, representing our own for the greatest organized robbery of all times. Only in future, must be taught that no country, no society, can the last few years did we begin to understand the achieve any degree of progress or development without enormity of the material losses that the victims of Nazi respect for human rights and the dignity of the persecution had to suffer. individual. That is the lesson and the legacy that the After the war, Austria made serious restitution memory of Auschwitz is handing down from and compensation efforts, and much was actually generation to generation. That is also why Austria is an accomplished. Only after many decades did we come active member of the Task Force for International to realize that not everything had been done and that Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance there were gaps and deficiencies in our restitution and and Research. Governments comprising the Task Force compensation efforts. To remedy that situation, the have committed themselves to the implementation of Austrian Government began comprehensive efforts to national policies and programmes in support of that effect, and we trust that those efforts, supported by Holocaust education, remembrance and research. all political parties and Austrian society at large, will Austria successfully initiated national bring at least some measure of justice to the victims of programmes, for instance, the “Never Forget” National Socialism, although they came late — too late programme, which provides for lecture visits by for so many. Holocaust survivors, and a programme for teachers If we speak of moral responsibility with regard to entitled “National Socialism and the Holocaust”.