The first lesson is the importance of Zachor - of remembrance itself. For as we remember the six million murdered in the Holocaust we have to undestand
that this is not a matter of abstract statistics. Unto each person there us a name - unto each person, there is an identity. Each person is a universe. As our sages tell us; whoever saves a single life, it is as if her or she has saved an antire universe. Just as whoever has killed a single person, it is as theu have killed an entire universe.
Lesson #2- The enduring lesson of the Holocaust - and of Rwanda - is that these genocidal murders succeeded not only because of the industry of death but because of the ideology of hate. It was this state-sanctioned teaching of cocntempt - this demonizing of the other - this is where it all begins. As our Supreme Court put it, "the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers, it began with words." There are the catastrophic effects of racism. These are the chilling facts of history.
Lesson #3- The dangers of silence, the consequences of indifference
For the genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the culture of hate and indusrty of death but because of crimes of indifference, because of conspiracies of silence. And we have witnessed an appaling indifference and silence in or own day which took us down to the inthinkable - ethnic cleansing in the Balkans - and down the road to the unspeakable - the genocide in Rwanda - made even more unspeakable because this ggenocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. But we did not act, just as we are not acting today in the face of the genocide by attrition in Darfur.
And so, it is our responsibility to break down walls of indifference, to shatter these conspiracies of silence - to stand up and be counted and not look around to see whoever else is standing before we make a judgement to do so because in the world in which we live, there are few people prepared to stand, let alone be counted; while indifference in the face of evil is acquiescence with evil itself - it is complicity with evil/
Lesson #4- Combatting Mass Atrocity and the Culture of Impunity
If the 20th Century - symbolized by the Holocaust - was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice; and so, just as there must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for history, so must there be base of sanctuary for these enemies of humankind.
May I close with a word to the survivors of the Holocaust and those whom you represent - for you are the true heroes of humanity. You witnessed and endured the worst of man's inhumanity to man, but somehow you found the courage to go on, to rebuild your lives as you have built your communities. And so it is with you, and because of you, that we remember that each person has a name and an identity - that each person is a universe.
We remener - and we pray - that never again will we be indifferent to racism and hate, that nver again will we be silent in the face of evil, that never again will we be indifferent in the face of mass atrociity and impunity. We will speak and we will act against recism, against hate, against atrocity, against injustice.
May this day be only an act of remembrance - which it is - but a remembrance to act - which it must be.
