THE director of the world’s oldest Holocaust archive yesterday joined Islanders for the annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration – which this year marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Wiener Holocaust Library director Dr Toby Simpson, who attended the ceremony in the Occupation Tapestry Gallery and the wreath-laying at the Lighthouse Memorial, said it was a “great honour” to have been invited to give the keynote address.
Holocaust Memorial Day is held to remember the millions who lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis and as a reminder to ensure such atrocities are not repeated.
Yesterday also saw the launch of the new Wiener Digital Collections platform, making thousands of historical documents, photographs and accounts accessible online for the first time – building on earlier work led by Dr Simpson that catalogued and digitised over 1,000 eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust.
“As we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, it is important to remember why the Shoah stands out in human history both as a devastating tragedy and as an urgent warning,” Dr Simpson said.
“The scale, scope and nature of the Holocaust itself, as symbolised by what happened at Auschwitz, is part of that warning. We must also heed the warning of where hatred, and antisemitism in particular, can lead.”
Dr Simpson noted that the “demonisation of Jews as sub-humans did not happen overnight”.
“The Nazis built on a long history of anti-Jewish racism and violence, and also on the active and passive complicity of millions of people,” he added.
He made reference to a talk he recently gave at Les Quennevais School, during which a child had asked why Jewish people had been “singled out”.
“This remains a difficult question to answer, since the truth is that the causes of antisemitism are not all, or even mainly, explicable by cause and effect. But it is a question we must keep asking ourselves if we are to find new ways to fight the scourge of anti-Jewish prejudice,” Dr Simpson continued.
“I hope we all find the courage to recognise what is wrong when we see it, to refuse to support hatred and fear of the other.
“With fewer and fewer eyewitnesses to share their testimony, the responsibility to keep the truth alive is now passing to every one of us.”
Dr Simpson’s time in the Island also included a visit to the memorial for the victims of forced and slave labour across the Channel Islands.
