The atrocities of the Holocaust should not be thought of as distant memories, but as urgent lessons to be applied to modern examples of dehumanisation, academics urged yesterday on Holocaust Memorial Day.
“The Holocaust is a watershed in history: it marked a turning point when people started thinking more seriously about xenophobia, discrimination and human rights in general,” said Ruth Farrugia, director general of the President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society.
“This is about every minority group that needs protection. We cannot afford to just sit back and not say anything; today is an opportunity to remember the terrible results when people did just that.”
Yesterday’s memorial event at Verdala Palace marked 71 years since the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp, where some 1.5 million people were killed as part of a genocide that took the lives of six million Jews across Europe, alongside countless members of other minorities.
The event brought together students from Maltese Sixth Forms and the Renzo Levi Jewish high school in Italy for workshops with local experts on interfaith dialogue, verbal violence and discrimination.
Conclusions from the workshops were later presented in front of an audience including several government ministers, faith leaders from the local Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities, ambassadors, and academics.
“The Holocaust is the ultimate example of dehumanisation, but other examples persist, such as refugee drownings in the Mediterranean,” participants said in an outcome document. “We must overcome tendencies towards dehumanisation through dialogue and by finding ways of developing the wellbeing of groups and individuals in society.”
Maria Pisani, director of Integra Foundation, who led one of the workshops, said remembering the Holocaust was “useless” if humankind did not learn from its darkest chapter.
“The students spoke about the importance of dialogue, of listening, of getting to know individuals rather than stereotypes, and of breaking through those stereotypes,” she said. “That dialogue isn’t easy, but it’s something that needs to be done.”
Ruben Zarfati, one of the teenage participants from the Renzo Levi Jewish high school, said he was moved by the opportunity to share understanding of the Holocaust with Maltese students.
“Today, the situation for us is still not very good,” he said. “We are regularly the victims of terrorism and other attacks. People have to understand that the Holocaust is something that can sadly be repeated.
“The only way to prevent it is to understand that we are all the same and to fight those who try to divide us.”
Addressing participants at the close of the event, President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca called for people to speak out against bigotry and hatred wherever they encountered it.
“Genocide does not take place in isolation. It is part of a steady process that begins where discrimination, racism, xenophobia and hatred are allowed to grow,” Ms Coleiro Preca said.
“The Holocaust and subsequent genocides took place because of an insidious silence that allowed persecution to build momentum; discrimination has not ended, nor have we heard the last of the language of hatred and exclusion.”