So that we never forget
On January 27, the world will remember the incomprehensible acts of horror and violence that befell the world, perpetuated by the Nazis following the democratic election which led them to power in Germany.
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In a short period of time, a little over a decade (1933 to 1945) this democratic country proceeded to systematically demolish the basic human rights of the most weakened elements within its society. What started as a legislative mechanism which defined who are worthy of basic rights and who are not, quickly escalated to the industrialised, clinically efficient and bestial annihilation of millions of "unworthy" human beings.
Of course the Jews, whose population was nearly decimated with over 6,000,000 murdered. The Gypsies, Slavs, political dissidents, the disfigured, the disabled, the mentally ill, homosexuals and anyone else who didn't fit the ideal of the "Master Race" was brought to the slaughter in concentration camps and in gas chambers.
January 27, the date selected by the UN for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is the day of the liberation of the most horrible of death camps – Auschwitz-Birkenau, where in less than five years, more than 1,100,000 human beings were slaughtered by the Nazis.
History demands of us a promise – that we should remember, and that we should never forget. The lessons learnt must be told and retold and must never be taken for granted for as we all know – history has a tendency of repeating itself.
Though ungrasped in its magnitude and in many aspects unmatched, the story of the Holocaust teaches us big lessons that must never be forgotten. It teaches us the responsibility of the strong in the society over the weak. It teaches us the importance of accepting the different and it warns us of the risks of dehumanising, objectifying and devaluating our fellow men and women. It teaches us that we are our brother’s keeper.
The history of the African Continent and its people is tragically no stranger to similar stories in past and present times. Upon visiting the castles in Cape Coast and Elmina, one cannot help but see the connecting lines of the dehumanising of Africans who were sold into slavery. When considering the images and stories that emerged from Rwanda, Darfur and numerous heart-wrenching genocides around our continent, one cannot escape this solemn reminder that these lessons have yet so much to teach us. The world that condemns the atrocities and anti-Semitic of those days is yet to stand firmly against the atrocities and anti-Semitic of our days.
Let us take this important day to heart, reflect on it and educate ourselves, our children, our neighbours and even our leaders to never forget and to never allow history to repeat itself.
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The writer is the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana