Honoured survivors, distinguished rabbis, Your Excellencies from the diplomatic corps, including High Commissioner Drake, Ambassadors Barak, Bosacki, Wendt, Odor, Cornado and Bennett, dear friends.
First let me begin by thanking my rabbi, Rabbi Bulka, for acting as our master of ceremonies, but more importantly for his leadership and his indefatigable work on behalf of human dignity.
As I told the rabbi, when I had the privilege of speaking at his tribute dinner last year – I was told it was supposed to be a retirement dinner, but he told me he wasn’t retiring, thanks God – I told him that I have long regarded him as my rabbi, but given his illustrious career, I think he’s actually Canada’s rabbi.
Among his many achievements he has a doctorate on the work of Viktor Frankl, whose insistence as a psychologist on the inalienable freedom of the human conscience in even the most horrific circumstances, and his belief that human suffering is never in vain or without meaning, are a great inspiration for our times – especially on an evening such as this as we cast our minds back seven decades ago to the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
As we see brutality every day we can draw strength from Viktor Frankl’s message to mankind. He said: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
The Shoah stands alone in human history for its incalculable horror and inhumanity – and yet has a universal message for mankind, a unique power as long as we insist that it be remembered. Just as we are compelled as free individuals to search for meaning, so too are we compelled as communities, as societies, and as countries to continue to learn lessons from this most dark and tragic chapter of human history.
We must continue to commemorate and honour the victims of this uniquely sadistic, brutal and rampant atrocity perpetrated by the Nazis – already now seven decades ago. To put it simply, we must always remember and never forget and – Heaven forbid – never permit another Holocaust to occur. This is the kind of resolution we must make at every opportunity, as I myself did on behalf of Canadians in attending the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau in 2010 in Poland – and just as my colleague, Minister of State Tim Uppal, has done in representing Canada there earlier today.
As Elie Wiesel once said: “An immoral society betrays humanity because it betrays the basis for humanity which is memory… A moral society is committed to memory.” So as time passes and as we mourn the passing of many members of the generation that witnessed and survived the Nazi era, it has become even more imperative for moral societies like ours to remain firm in that commitment to memory.
There’s always the risk that the memory of the Shoah could be lost, just as the Holocaust is declared by some not to have happened or, horror of horrors, to have been invented for political gain. Indeed, we have seen in recent public opinion research that the majority of the population of many countries in the world know nothing of the Shoah. That is why Canada must join with its IHRA partners – the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – in promoting Holocaust research and education around the world.
Thank you for your fine words, High Commissioner Drake and Ambassador Bennett. Students of the Holocaust not only learn about historical events. They are obliged to confront stark questions about anti-Semitism and other pernicious forms of hatred, about the dark side of humanity and the nature of evil – what John Paul II referred to as the Mysterium Iniquitatis, the mystery of evil – about the use and abuse of political power and about the responsibility of individuals and nations to take principled actions often at great cost to themselves, even the cost of their own lives.
The Government of Canada is leading efforts to ensure that future generations learn the lessons of the Shoah, just as we are at the forefront of the international fight against anti-Semitism – just as, for example, ours was the first country to announce its withdrawal from the tainted Durban II and Durban III processes at the United Nations, because we would not lend the good name of this country, a champion of pluralism, to a process ostensibly to combat racism, which in fact promoted the most ancient and pernicious form of racism, anti-Semitism.
Our task is made only more critical at a time when anti-Semitic incidents and Holocaust denial are on the rise around the world – from the streets of Paris, to the highest political offices in Tehran, to the dark corners of the internet, to the front lawn of some of our legislatures, where people openly call for the elimination of the Jewish homeland.
In the words of Primo Levi, the Italian Jewish writer, chemist and Auschwitz survivor: “Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.”
We know that the State and people of Israel wish only to live in peace and harmony with their neighbours, without the constant threat of war and genocide at their border. We know that only when Israel’s enemies lay down their arms and abandon the goal of driving every Jew into the sea, and instead embrace peace, mutual respect and historical truth, can there be a genuine and lasting peace.
This is what Parliamentarians from around the world declared here in Ottawa four years ago in developing the Ottawa Protocol, as we hosted the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, organized in part by our dear colleague, the Honourable Irwin Cotler. At that meeting of the international legislators from over 50 countries, in the room right across from this hall, Prime Minister Harper said: “When Israel, the only true democratic country in the region and the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, when this Jewish homeland is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, we are morally obligated to stand against that.” We have stood against that hatred, and we have the bruises to show for it.
There is a fundamental moral difference between a democratic Israel, whose existence is threatened, and the anti-Semitic aggressors who threaten it. We do support Israel not just because it’s the right thing to do, which it is, but also because history shows us that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are ultimately a threat to all of us.
Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, today the 31 members, eight observer countries, and seven permanent international partners of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, collectively reaffirm our unqualified support for the Stockholm Declaration of 15 years ago, as High Commissioner Drake described, and with it our commitment to remembering and honouring the victims of the Shoah, to upholding its terrible truth, to standing up against those who would distort or deny it, and to combating anti-Semitism and racism in all of their forms.
We’re very glad to have the representation of Ambassador Bennett of our Office of Religious Freedom, which today announced a grant of $100,000 to UNESCO’s Holocaust Education Program. Indeed, this is in addition to – as Ambassador Bosacki mentioned earlier today – a contribution that Canada has made to the preservation of Auschwitz-Birkenau as a permanent place of memory and learning.
Indeed, this is in addition to other efforts by the Government of Canada, including the erection of a monument at our National Immigration Museum, Pier 21 – the Wheel of Conscience, designed by Daniel Libeskind – as an expression of our sorrow and regret for having rejected Jewish European refugees during the Second World War. Indeed, we’ve given practical expression to this sentiment by being the first country – to date I believe – the only country to have signed the Ottawa Protocol, recognizing its definition of anti-Semitism.
I know that this year’s IHRA chair, the United Kingdom, and next year’s chair, Hungary, are equally committed to this important global effort. In closing, let me quote Primo Levi, as he wrote in his book Survival in Auschwitz: “Never forget that this has happened. Remember these words. Engrave them in your hearts. When at home or in the street, when lying down and getting up, repeat them to your children.”
Never again.
