Why We Remember

This speech was delivered April 20 at Place des Nations in Geneva.

Here I am, for the third time in thirty years, charged with the dreadful honor of speaking on this day that is, for Jews all over the world, a day of grieving and remembrance. And here I am, as before and perhaps now even more so, compelled to explain again why this commemoration is a sacred duty not only for Jews but for the world.

Shouldn't we, some ask, let the dead rest in peace and let forgetfulness, merciful forgetfulness scar over the wounds of the past? Yes, of course, we should. Yes, of course, it is always good to let the dead rest in peace. And I will even say that there is nothing more Jewish, more consistent with the commandments of the Torah, than the religious injunction to bury the dead quickly, once and for all. Except... Yes, except for those dead who haven't been truly buried. Except the dead whose deaths involved no tomb or memorial. Except for the dead whose deaths were engineered to be deaths without a trace, without a remnant, and thus, I maintain, without a grave. So it is up to the living to be the living tombs of these dead. It is the duty of survivors, and the children of survivors, to carry within themselves the memory of these fathers who will forever be only as old as their children. The dead, the poor dead, are in much pain... We are the tombs of our fathers... These are the words of one of the great French poets, Charles Baudelaire. But this is, most of all, the case of those who refuse to wash their hands of all of the Jewish flesh gone up in ashes and smoke.

This crime, they say, was a grave crime to be sure. But how can you say that it was a greater crime than all other crimes? And why do you insist on declaring it an exception in the series of evil deeds that is the very framework of human history? We are not insisting on anything. Nothing is more alien to the Jewish idea of death than establishing any kind of scale or hierarchy of deaths. Except that, here again, something happened in the Shoah that finds itself--and that's just the way it is--without precedent. And this something is a manhunt and a massacre that meant, not only the absence of any trace of a tomb, but also the impossibility for the victims to find a place, any place, to escape their executioners. The Armenians, who were (and this is too often questioned) the victims of the first genocide in History, were only pursued in Turkey. The Tutsis, the Cambodians, the Darfuris (whose genocide should be denounced with the same force) could, at least in theory, should they have found asylum in a neighboring country, escape the murderers' clutches. There was no such escape for the Jews targeted by a Shoah that intended to be their complete destruction. All of Europe--soon thereafter, and in theory, the world--became an immense trap for the Jewish game hunted by the Wehrmacht dogs and the SS. An extermination--it is that which is excruciatingly singular--that offered no recourse because it wanted to leave no remnant, no remains.

This notion of total extermination is important for yet another very precise and concrete reason: namely, Israel. The Shoah did not cause Israel to come into being. And we must do everything, truly everything, to break the insidious chain that, in linking the two, ends up imputing a providential cause to, and, whether we want it to or not, justifying the Shoah. All the same, there is another inanity heard all over, which consists of the following: "Yes, alright, it was a crime; yes, if absolutely necessary to admit, a singular crime; but as for the survivors of the tragedy, why weren't they moved to Germany? Why a national Jewish homeland in the Arab world--the only part of the world that did not take part in the crime?" And the answer remains that the world itself was a trap for Jews; there wasn't a single part of the world where the evil wind of this death didn't blow; and the Arab world did not recuse itself, any more than the rest of the world, from this plan of total extermination... Today we have very detailed information on the matter. We have the memoirs of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem describing, relentlessly, during the entire duration of the war, his admiration for Hitler. We have the work of historians citing the existence of an Arab SS legion waiting, at the rear guard of Rommel's army, for the order to descend on the Yishuv in order to exterminate the 500,000 Jews who had already settled there. We know, in other words, that Nazism was a global ideology that manifested itself in national versions and, in particular, in an Arab version no less criminal than the European version. This changes nothing--quite the contrary--when it comes to the necessary fight for democracy in the Arab world and, in particular, in the Palestinian State to come. This is simply an argument for honesty, an argument to oppose relentlessly those who, sustained by an ignorance related to an absence of memory, try to delegitimize Israel--and who sometimes, unfortunately, succeed. Commemorating the Shoah is also a matter of honesty. It is also a fight against ignorance.

It is April 20, 2009. We could have, when it was decided fifty years ago, to inscribe this day of commemoration in the calendars of nations, chosen the anniversary of the opening of the death camps. We could have chosen the date of the Wansee Conference. We could have decided on any other day--and they are legion!--commemorating the Jewish martyrdom across the ages. But no. It was the 27th of Nissan of the Hebraic year that was chosen. In other words, this year in particular, the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. And, in the lively discussions that presided over this choice, in the debate, notably, between Ben Gurion and the religious adherents of Judaism, this detail surely escaped no one. What was it meant to mean? That we had to put an end to the cliché of a Jewish people going to their deaths like lambs to the slaughter. That we had to celebrate, at the same time as the memory of the crime, this heroic episode in Warsaw that was followed by the revolts of Sobibor, Birkenau, Treblinka. That it mattered, in other words, to commemorate a massacre, but also a resistance. For me, the son not of a deportee but of a member of the Resistance, this will to act is essential. I invite you to remember that there is always, even in the darkest night, a place for insurgence and for hope. We are here to remind, far beyond ourselves, all the people of the world, that it is always possible, always, to revolt.

A last word. Since we are discussing the calendar, there is quite the coincidence that an international conference against racism opens today just a few steps from here. And there are once again voices who say to us: "What good is there in reviving the racisms of yesterday when it is the racisms of tomorrow that threaten us? And aren't you afraid, in fixating on past genocides, of neglecting those happening here, now, right in front of you?" Of course not, no, I do not fear that. And to be frank, I even believe that that is, on the contrary, another reason to commemorate the Shoah. Because beyond the fact that this conference is beginning to become, as anticipated, a masquerade, I come back to the question: why have so many Jewish organizations mobilized for Darfur? Why did the first who understood what was happening in Rwanda, be they Jews or non-Jews, have the Shoah in their hearts? Why, when the world closed its eyes to the massacre of Muslims in Bosnia, was it up to a handful of men and women, whose only commonality was the "never again" of Auschwitz, to sound the alarm? Nor were they better informed than others. Nor were they better. They had but a compass. A scale of bad and of worse. A kind of radar that signaled, every time, the proximity of the Beast and of his trademark scent. We must commemorate the Shoah because, far from blinding us to the suffering of the moment, it is, on the contrary, the only way to render that suffering intolerable and visible.

I dream, dear friends, of a Conference that could have been a platform for all of the victimized, the voiceless of today's forgotten genocides, instead of serving as a platform for the racist ranting of a psychopathic Iranian President, instead of serving as a moral whitewashing of a handful of dictators whose contribution to the global history of democracy and of human rights has consisted, until now, of hanging homosexuals, of oppressing religions minorities, or of burning alive adulterous women. I dream of a Durban II that would have opened with the testimony of a Dalit Indian. Or of a survivor of Darfur. Or of a Rwandan who had survived the massacres fifteen years ago. Or of a son of one of these dead without a tomb, without a name, without a face, without an inscription in any archive or memoir, sometimes without being counted, who have a fraternal resemblance to the dead without remnant, without remains, of the Shoah, and that are cut down, even today, in Africa, in Asia, or elsewhere, in wars that no one notices. This dream will have to come true one day. And that's why, this evening, from this beautiful city that is, by tradition, a symbol of hospitality and liberty, before you who are, by vocation, natural advocates of all these modern damned, I call for another Conference, truly antiracist, truly faithful to the ideals of the United Nations, to seal the Great Alliance of "the shaken" of yesterday and today. Let's forget about Durban II. Let's prepare for Geneva III.

Translated from French by Sara Phenix.

Comments

[MalakAlHaq]

Excuse me, but your fine words would have much more impact if you showed the same sensitivity to the plight of the Palestinian People.

They have suffered daily for over forty years by the same people (not all of whom) you write about.

You might take the opportunity to use that reputation you have earned to defend them; only then would I, for one, take you seriously.

[freshnotbitter]

No money in it.

[shotei]

Absolutely great text. Let the moral compass forced upon us by the Holocaust guide us in the quest for the dignity of human kind everywhere.

[chaos4700]

So how come that moral compass of yours has a Palestine-sized blind spot?

[Solaris123]

Example of utter lack of moral compass:

Chaos4700::‘Now you're going to start that fabricated nonsense about Ahmedinejad being a Holocaust denier? ‘
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/09/bishop-who-denied-the-hol_n_165135.html?page=2

[BBC]The leader of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood has joined Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in calling the Nazi Holocaust a "myth". his group won a record 19% of seats in Egypt's parliamentary elections."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4554986.stm

[SeanKennedy]

Solaris,

You are even more biased than any of the people you are trying to criticize. You seem to be of the attitude that anyone that criticizes Israel AT ALL is either uninformed or anti-semetic. While many Arabs have insane, racist and ignorant ideas about the Jewish people, you completely ignore the the death and destruction that is caused by Israel in retaliation. The recent war in Gaza is the equivalent to the moral bankruptcy of the Iraq war. If the war was conducted so carefully, why did Israel deny reporters entry?

The fact is that both sides actions are wrong. If Hamas are terrorists, then so is the Israeli government. If Al Qaeda are terrorists than so is the American government.

You can't bomb them into submission, it only makes them more angry. It only helps their cause. And it undermines yours. As well as undermining your supposed moral high ground.

I am assuming you are far too emotional and biased about this situation to see the truth in theses statements most likely. Which is kind of funny, considering if you are on this site you are probably liberal. You probably agree with most of us that the war in Iraq was wrong. Yet you think that the violent, terrorist actions of Israel is somehow justified.

[skialethia]

Thank you for that.

[msfsi]

Skia, Solaris is M-Ludi's new moniker if you havent figured it our by now.

[SeanKennedy]

Solaris,

You have condescending responses for everyone else.... what about me??????

[lefty53]

"The Armenians, who were (and this is too often questioned) the victims of the first genocide in History"

I believe the first recorded genocide in history was the Conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. In Jericho every man, woman, child was murdered - even the animals were killed.

[Solaris123]

An opinion entirely divorced from reality, history or even common sense.

[MelRoy]

Maybe they mean modern history, because there were lots of genocides before that. As you say, the Canaanites were wiped out by the Israelites. The Athenians wiped out the Minoans. The Macedonians the Tyrians. The Taino were almost wiped out by the Spanish. The Roman destruction of Carthage is classed as genocide. So is the British killing all the aborigines in Tasmania and Germans killing the Herero in Namibia. Californians in the 1850s deliberately and methodically wiped out the Yuki tribe (there are about 100 Yuki left in the world today).

[Solaris123]

re. "Maybe they mean modern history"
Biblical reports about Canaan and Ancient Israel are modern history?!
MelRoy, you'd better stick to what you know, whatever it is.

[shotei]

If you want to play this game, then the Egyptians were the first genocidal nation in the world. When the Pharaoh demanded that every Jewish boy must die in order to stop the Jewish people from continuing its lineage, he was taking genocidal actions.
Lets move arguments up a bit. Every scholar considers the Armenian genocide the first genocide in history.

[Solaris123]

Abd-ul-Latif just posted:
"Christian "missionary work" was prohibited and rightly so. Why? Because Christianity is a predatory religion that seeks to rip people from the faith of generations and drive them apart from their families, that seeks to have them worship human beings as deities."

Obviously, this "opinion" didn't arise from vacuum. Someone had to distribute it and indoctrinate young people in United States with it.
In England such opinions can be regularly heard in sermons and some schools.
It seems U.S. is not immune either. Warning for all of us.

[Solaris123]

BBC-published secular proclamation.
Bernard-Henri Lévy is one of authors.

Please click on link to read the entire statement.
Quotes:
"We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

Recent events, prompted by the publication of drawings of Muhammad in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values.

We reject the "cultural relativism" which implies an acceptance that men and women of Muslim culture are deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secularism in the name of the respect for certain cultures and traditions.

We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", a wretched concept that confuses criticism of Islam as a religion and stigmatisation of those who believe in it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4764730.stm

BRAVO AND BRAVA!!!

[Abd-ul-Latif]

Their rejection of cultural relativism means essentially that "my culture is better than yours." And these allegedly universal values are anything but universal. This is just more and more colonialism. It's easy to say that your own secular values are superior when you yourself are from a totally secular society. But those "universal" secular values have brought a long list of horrible ills to America and to Europe. Secularism has proven itself totally bankrupt, and the rest of the world--the majority world--will never accept secularism. We will fight it to our last breaths. Thank God.

[Solaris123]

And you will lose. As all primitive mindsets must.

[MelRoy]

Who would I prefer has control of Pakistan's nukes...secular Muslims or the Taliban?

Sorry, Abdul, but the secularists win that one hands down. We have seen way too many times what religious ferver makes people do. You know, how McKinley said subjigating the Filipinos was a "mission from God", that we had to "bring Christianity to and civilize the little brown men".

I think I've mentioned here that I am descended from Hugenots. You should read about them. Did you know that in France, every other religion except Catholicism is called a "cult"? The "Protestant cult", the "Muslim cult", the "Jewish cult". I recently went to a funeral - a Protestant. They had the service in a Catholic church, because to be honest, there were like a whole ten Protestants in the city and they worshipped in a space the size of my kitchen. It was a full-blown Roman Catholic mass, and the priest must have mentioned the fact my friend was Protestant 50 times during the sermon. The good thing was, she was buried in a secular cemetary - with Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists.

[libra1]

You are not rejecting relativism. You are merely saying "my absolute moral religious viewpoint is better than your absolute moral religious viewpoint." That's why all conflicts that involve absolutist viewpoints are ultimately fought with the sword as opposed to reason.

[Solaris123]

"The voices of moderation in the Muslim world are the ones that are being intimidated and silenced. Those few journalists and leaders who have spoken out against the rioting have been vilified and assailed, and even jailed. According to a report by Michael Slackman and Hassan M. Fattah in The New York Times, 11 journalists in five Islamic countries face prosecution for printing some of the Danish cartoons, even when their purpose was to condemn them.
It is time for moderate Muslims to abandon the illusion that they can placate the Islamists by straddling the fence..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/opinion/25sat3.html?ex=1298523600&en=bf280551cfccfc39&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

NO to equating the right to religious dogma with n with human rights.

[Abd-ul-Latif]

Michael Slackman is hardly credible. He is an anti-muslim, anti-Arab racist whose every NYT column openly ridicules muslims through exaggerations, smears and lies. Yet the NYT has chosen him to be their main correspondent on the Arab world. Are there no Arab writers (muslim or christian) who could have filled the bill? Do we really need the condescending diatribes of a Michael Slackman? He, like the "philosopher" Levy, believes that Western secular values are better than religious values.

Really? If that's true, then why are we having this endless left-wing vs. right-wing debate about whether our country can torture people? We're having the debate because, in a world where there are no absolute moral truths, expediency always trumps true morality in the end.

[Solaris123]

Abd posted: Christian "missionary work" was prohibited and rightly so. Why? Because Christianity is a predatory religion that seeks to rip people from the faith of generations and drive them apart from their families, that seeks to have them worship human beings as deities."

No debate is conceivable or advisable with people who hold such opinions.

[mikefina]

Virtually all of Europe was a trap??
Tell it to the Brits.
France ought never live down the infamy of its Vichy past. A day to remember, indeed.

[MelRoy]

The coastal regions of France, Belgium and the Netherlands were swarming with Nazi troops. It became VERY difficult to get to Britain. The only British Jews I know who survived the Holocaust were those who got out really early in the war.

[mikefina]

Respectfully, I don't understand your post. Are you saying that Jews INSIDE Britain perished? Or, that British Jews, living in coastal France, Belgium and the Netherlands died?
In the distinction, lies the difference.

[BadgerinNJ]

"The Armenians, who were (and this is too often questioned) the victims of the first genocide in History, were only pursued in Turkey."

Excuse me?
1. How dare he even add the parenthetical cr ap?
2. Only pursued in Turkey? Most of "Turkey" was the Armenians' ancestral homeland for millennia before the Turks had ever left their Mongol homelands.
3. Before 1915, the Armenian diaspora was insignificant. Most Armenians still lived in their ancestral homes.

I find it very had to take Mr. Levy seriously. Especially today, on the eve of Armenian Martyr's Day. Tomorrow, April 24 will be commemorated by Armenians throughout the world because, yes, we were the victims of the first genocide, a fact Mr. Levy would do well to recognize.

Oh, and by the way, the relationship between Armenian and the invading Turks was not without its problems before 1915. In fact, the Turks pretty much conducted "small" massacres every generation or so, to keep the number of Armenians low.

[Palspal]

Well before there was the Armenian Genocide there was the Belgian Holocaust of Congolese in the Belgian Congo. Belgium's King Leopold killed upwards of 6 million or more people at the turn of the 20th century. This Holocaust not only precedes the Nazi Holocaust but the murder toll may even be double the number of Jews killed by the Third Reich. Yad Vashem records more than 3 million deaths in the Nazi Holocaust.

[MelRoy]

Thanks for the reminder.

I have found it is incredibly difficult to get information on genocides pre-dating WW1, because the facts were buried, covered up, swept under the carpet by the mighty empires and colonial powers who did the massacring.

[skialethia]

Please read this interview with Avrum Burg, and understand why it's impossible to be right with your conscience and stand for justice and zionism at the same time:

http://www.zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/06/avram-burgs-case-against-israel.html

Unfortunately, Avrum Burg was the Obama of Israel and Israelis rejected him. He was the answer to their prayers, and had to leave because he was unable to accept the direction that Israelis adopted. Israelis are on the wrong path. That path will lead to more injustice and eventually the end of the state of Israel. Everyone with the sense to see beyond irrational passion and religious zealotry can see this.

[libra1]

Burg, schmurg.
Zionism is, and is nothing but, the movement of the Jewish people for their own political self-determination. It is, and remains, inconsistent and hypocritical to champion the principle of self-determination for all peoples while in effect denying it to one--the Jews--by tacitly accepting the Arab states' tactic of using the Palestinian refugees as a weapon in their antisemitic war.

[Solaris123]

Libra1, Exactly. Precisely the reason why Palestinains suffer such deprivations and human rights violations in Arab states.
Since Arab states were soundly defeated militarily, raising a group of underfed and abused people ( Michael Vick style ) of Palestinian ancestry among the riches of Arab countries was chosen as policy. Cynical--yes. Astonishingly unethical--yes. Anyone cares--no.

[skialethia]

You are hopelessly in denial. I just can't understand how one can see the injustices taking place in Hebron for instance, because they are being experienced all over the West Bank and Gaza, and think that this will end well. You are clinging to an illusion. Stop dreaming when the reality is too ugly to face. You can't build a foundation on the misery of others and not expect it to come crashing down.

[libra1]

Otherwise well-intended and perspicacious leftists tend to either forget or ignore that Israel did not create the Palestinian refugee problem, but had it dumped on them by the Arab states. Refugees are a problem in all wars, including wars of liberation­/nation-bu­ilding. In all cases except this one, the refugees from the losing nations have been absorbed into those nations. But because a Jewish state is intolerable to the Arabs in power, the Arab states have forced the Palestinians to remain in squalid camps as human weapons in their war of attrition. Here are the roots of the humanitarian outrage that the refugees represent. Israel refuses to absorb all of the Palestinians simply because to do so would cause it to be overwhelmed as a Jewish state To think otherwise--that the Jews of Israel build walls against the Palestinian refugees simply out of ethnic or religious bigotry--is itself evidence of deep-seated anti-Jewish feelings--i.e. antisemitism. In fact, Israel quite willingly grants full political rights, including representation in the Knesset, to its substantial minority of Palestinian citizens.
Israel is more than willing to grant human rights and dignity to Arabs and Palestinians--it just draws the line at granting them the means to carry out their leaders' transparent long-range scheme to annihilate it.

[Abd-ul-Latif]

One of the biggest lies out there is being repeated again here. For God's sake. The refugee problem EXISTS because ISRAELIS kicked the Palestinians out of their homes. In many cases they fired machine guns above the roofs of people's houses until they fled. In other cases they just started murdering civilians until the rest fled. You cannot just blame "the Arab states"--what if Mexico collapsed--would we then take in all the refugees and grant them full citizenship? We don't even accomodate seasonal workers without the I.C.E. and Border Patrol sending dogs and helicopters after them!! How many times will this absurd lie be repeated, unquestioned?

[libra1]

Please read my post from 12:28 pm on 4/24/09.

[Solaris123]

Jews began to immigrate to their former homeland, a remote corner of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century. As a group with an identity they decided to establish their own state. They have.
Just as hundreds other states were establsihed out of Ottoman and British empires.
Israel is now a successful, prosperous and a democratic state.

Those who adhere to the imperialist notion that anything ever conquered by Islam belongs to Islam are wrong!

[Soori]

People living in historic Palestine were not just Muslims, they included Christians and Jews and they had no problem living together until their land and homes were partitioned unjustly.

The Imperialist notion seems to be the other way around - Israel just taking over whatever it can grab illegally and force the inhabitants out!.

[Solaris123]

I am sure in your opinion Muslims are entitled to govern it all.
Just and Unjust?

When Empires fall land gets divided.
Arab Muslims got a GREAT deal out of various sub divisions of the Middle East from both Ottoman and British empires. Proof-- no state for Kurds, no Christian states, ethnic soup that is Iraq, Hashemite Kingdom in Palestine etc.
But since Jews got a tiny sliver of land.... and suddenly.... non-ending shrieks echoing since 1948... "unfair, unjust"!!!
Typical...

[max08]

Democratic? It can't be democratic as long as its a religious state. No democracy is.

[Culturemaven]

I think this was beautifully written and meaningful. There is nothing quite like visiting a Holocaust memorial. At the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague you can see the names of the nearly 80,000 Jews from the area who died, all painstakingly handpainted on the walls. And when I saw my husband's Czech family name there, I cried anew for all of them. We are not Jewish, but merely human. I feel connected to the Bohemian Jews and the children of the Vel-d'hiv by my heart and my conscience.
I will remember and honor them.

[35mm]

In my estimation Mr. Burg articulates a very simple truism: we cannot build identity on death.
The trauma of the battlefield renders many soldiers useless for years and sometimes leads to suicide (see the recent increase in suicide rates amongst U.S. military personnel). Industrial scale murder during WWII continues to act as a traumatic event upon people born many years later. Memory is foundational for the Jewish people as the only institution they had for centuries was written text. Perhaps the obsessive memory of the Holocaust is an unintended consequence of memory practice perceived as self preservation. Mr. Burg gives a telling example in the businessman who cuts his trip to Poland short, being overwhelmed by the sights and sounds surrounding him while traveling by train. The "punchline" consists of Mr. Burg asking this man where did his family come from. "Iraq", the man answered. As distortions at the government level Mr. Burg cites Israel's support of Serbia's nationalists when in fact it should have been the other way around. Personally, I am confident that the memory of the Holocaust will eventually shed its unintended consequences and will blossom into a soaring Phoenix.

[ml123]

Actually there was one part of the world that was not a 'death trap' for Jews: North America. (not to mention South America and probably Asia and Africa, so basically almost the entire world).

Why was there not a Jewish state created in Wyoming or any other part of the US/Canada?

It would benefit everyone and especially world peace.

Why to put the Jewish state in the most conflictive possible place??

I see no defense for this gigantic mistake and no hope for peace in that region.

[courtb]

Cuz the US was an antisemitic country and refused entry to thousands upon thousands of Jews?

You'd be surprised how much support Hitler received here...

[skialethia]

What about Canada? Canada is huge and in 1948 had only 13,000,000 people. It was filled with vast open space.

No one would have been displaced, no terrorism would have been needed, no idigenous people would have had to be killed or suffer injustice...it was a win-win solution.

[Palspal2]

Hitler received support here not because of anti-Semitism but because he was anti-Communist and because the US had a large German-descended population that had great difficulty siding with Germany's enemies - just as American Jews have great difficulty siding against Israel (the big difference being that German-Americans came from Germany, Jewish-Americdans did not come from Israel). More importantly, many Zionists, Ben-Gurion included, believed that Jews brought to America were lost to Palestine. He said as much. On the other hand, the US had already been made the successful new home of millions of Jewish immigrants - Its where Jews wanted to come - not Palestine.