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Nazi Holocaust Began with Leaders' Dangerous Words

[Israel Mission to the UN] Ambassador Gabriela Shalev - Speaking before the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Israel's ambassador to the UN told the General Assembly on Monday: Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, served as a prelude to the Holocaust. On that night, organized gangs of Nazi rioters and their supporters rampaged throughout Germany, destroying more than a thousand synagogues, as well as thousands of Jewish shops and businesses. In this massive pogrom, Jews were murdered, and many thousands more were sent to concentration camps. Other peoples, cultures and nations also suffered severely from Nazi atrocities. However, let us not forget that no other nation lost such an enormous proportion of its people as did the Jewish people. In the words of Elie Weisel, not every victim was Jewish, but all Jews were victims. Holocaust remembrance must be a dynamic and ongoing effort that requires our commitment to adapt the lessons of the Nazi genocide to evolving threats in our time. Thus, we cannot ignore the troubling reality that today - more than 60 years after the Holocaust - we hear from this very same podium a leader of a member state who calls for the destruction of another member state and denies the historical realities of the Holocaust. In this hall, all member states swore: "never again." It is therefore incumbent upon us not merely to condemn such statements, but to act immediately and with resolve against a member state whose leaders declare such despicable and dangerous words. For in the end, the Nazi Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers. That is where it ended. The Nazi Holocaust began with the dangerous words of men.
2008-11-04 01:00:00
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