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| You are here: 2000 / Workshops, Panels and Seminars / Panel 2: Remembering the Holocaust - The challenges of Memory / Presentation by Mr. Serge Klarsfeld | |||||||||
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Report from Panel 2 on Remembering the Holocaust - the Challenges of Memory Presentation by Mr. Serge Klarsfeld Presentation by Dr. Anita Shapira Presentation by Dr. Franciszek Piper Presentation by Mr. Serge Klarsfeld Klarsfeld, Serge Presentation by Mr. Serge Klarsfeld Panel II- Rememering the Holocaust: The Challenges of Memory
Serge Klarsfeld In that special day anniversary of the liberation of the camp of Auschwitz, let me recall the memory of my father who was deported from France by the 61st convoy, on October 28th 1943, and who did not see the liberation of Auschwitz. Being a foreigner, a Romanian Jew, he was a volunteer in the French army, he bravely fought against the Germans in 1940, he managed to escape from the Stalag, he was active in the French Resistance, he sacrificed his life and saved his wife and children when the Gestapo came to arrest the family and even at the arrival in Auschwitz he beat up a Kapo who slapped him and, as reprisal, was sent to the coal-mine of Furstengrubbe IG Farben. After nine months of slave work he was sent back to Auschwitz and gassed. Thirty five years ago, in 1965, I went to Auschwitz and in the archives I could discover his tattooed number 159683. I still remember well my father, murdered in Auschwitz and several former deportees are my friends. All of them are more than 73 years old and soon I will be sixty five. I say that because one day all of the survivors of the deportation, those who were in Auschwitz, will disappear and all the survivors who, like me, were children during the Holocaust and the targets of the Nazis will be gone and will also disappear, all those who lost somebody they loved, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a friend, killed in the Holocaust. This is the reason why this International Forum on the Holocaust has such a great importance for all of us. Not only by the fact that so many political leaders gathered here, but because the lines of action of the Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research will be traced in that conference and will receive, we hope, the support of the governments. Remembering the Holocaust - The Challenges of Memory is the goal of this panel. There are many of these challenges. How to remember? What is to be remembered? The number of 6 million, the different ways by which these 6 millions were exterminated, executed in common graves, killed by starvation in the Ghettos, gassed in gas vans or in gas chambers in extermination camps and more than everything must be remembered the victims, each of the victims, each of the 6 million victims, one plus one, plus one, plus one… What also must be the importance to give to historical locations, to Holocaust Museums, to Holocaust Memorials, to Holocaust Monuments, to Holocaust Documentation Centers, to testimonies of the survivors, to Holocaust art works, to civic commemorations of the Holocaust… What kind of Memory of the Holocaust to establish, to preserve to be sure that it will be shared by others than Jews, that it will be universal, that it will help to a humanist conception of life and society, to be sure that it will be integrated to individual collective conscience and, as a result, create that intelligence of heart which is the strongest barrier against bestiality and return of barbarism. >> Back to top |
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Introduction Opening Session: Messages and speeches Plenary Sessions: Messages and speeches Workshops, Panels and Seminars
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| For information about this production and the Stockholm International Forum Conference Series please go to www.humanrights.gov.se or contact Information Rosenbad, SE-103 33 Stockholm, Sweden | |||||||||