Tuesday\u2019s solemn commemoration marks the day 81 years ago that the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp \u2013 where over a million people were murdered \u2013 was liberated by Allied forces towards the end of World War Two.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commenting on the disturbing rise of antisemitism in recent years – including the \u201cheinous attacks\u201d targeting Jewish communities in Sydney and Manchester \u2013 Mr. T\u00fcrk warned that \u201chatred and dehumanization are creeping into our daily lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He urged people to remember the lessons of the Holocaust, during which six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe genocide did not begin with concentration camps and gas chambers; it started with apathy and silence in the face of injustice, and with the corrosive dehumanization of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The need for remembrance<\/p>\n
The central theme of this year’s commemoration is Holocaust Remembrance for Dignity and Human Rights.<\/p>\n
Reflecting this theme and addressing some of today’s challenges, the High Commissioner emphasised the need for \u201claws that prohibit discrimination, and politicians who do not polarize by calling out differences \u2013 but unite by calling out injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n
To protect humanity from repeating its darkest chapters, Mr T\u00fcrk stated: \u201cWe need education about the Holocaust, human rights for all ages, and robust, inclusive systems to moderate digital content, so that people can express their concerns without fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reasons for hope\u00a0<\/p>\n
Calling on the world to use available tools today such as international human rights law, unprecedented access to verifiable information and \u201cthe memory of how exclusion can turn into annihilation\u201d, Mr T\u00fcrk demanded action to counter the \u201cplague\u201d of racism, antisemitism, and dehumanisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, we must challenge exceptionalism, supremacy, and bigotry wherever we encounter them: at the dinner table, at our workplaces, and on social media,\u201d the rights chief continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach of us can be an architect of a world free from discrimination and intolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Echoing the words of\u00a0Anne Frank<\/a> and remembering her step sister, Eva Schloss, who died a few weeks ago, Mr T\u00fcrk emphasised that \u201cnobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Listen to our interview with Ms. Schloss, who spoke to UN News in Geneva in 2018,\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The UN commemorates<\/p>\n