Secretary-General’s remarks at the United Nations Memorial Ceremony marking the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust
UN Secretary General António Guterres
It is an honor to be here with you.
I am humbled to have Holocaust survivors and their families with us today.
Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that more than a year has passed since the appalling 7th October terror attacks by Hamas.
We welcome, at long last, the ceasefire and hostage release deal. The deal offers hope, as well as much needed relief.
We will do our utmost to ensure it leads to the release of all hostages. Since the beginning, we have asked for the unconditional immediate release of all hostages and a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Dear Friends, Every year on this day, we come together to mark the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. We mourn the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, as they sought to destroy an entire people.
We grieve the Roma and Sinti also targeted for genocide, the people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ people, and all those enslaved, persecuted, tortured, and killed.
We stand alongside victims, survivors and their families.
And we renew our resolve never to forget: Never to forget the atrocities that so “outraged the conscience” of humankind.
And never to forget their putrid foundations: millennia of antisemitic hate – manifest in marginalization, discrimination, expulsions, and murder.
Dear Friends, this year, our commemoration marks a milestone.
80 years ago, the Holocaust ended. And our efforts began to keep the terrible truth alive; building on the work of those who chronicled Nazi atrocities as they were perpetrated around them – and against them.
The courage of survivors in telling their stories has played an enormous role. We are deeply grateful to them all.
But the responsibility belongs to every one of us. Remembrance is not only a moral act. Remembrance is a call to action. To allow the Holocaust to fade from memory would dishonor the past and betray the future.
The extraordinary Auschwitz survivor, Primo Levi – who bore witness to all he had seen and endured – urged us to carve the knowledge into our hearts. And we must.
To know the history of the Holocaust is to know the depths to which humanity can sink. It is to understand how the Nazis were able to commit their heinous crimes, with the complicity of others.
And it is to comprehend our solemn duty to speak-up against hate, to stand-up for the human rights of all, and to make those rights a reality.
Dear Friends, following the hell of the Holocaust, countries came together: They created the United Nations and our Charter 80 years ago – affirming the worth of every human person…
They adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – for which we owe a debt of gratitude to the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin…
And they established the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the foundation of all international human rights law.
As one of the drafters, Lebanese diplomat and intellectual, Charles Malik, said, the Declaration was: “…Inspired by opposition to the barbarous doctrines of Nazism and fascism.”
The dignity of every member of our human family is enshrined in that document, which draws from traditions around the world. It is a pure expression of our shared humanity. And in dark times it remains a shining light.
Dear Friends, today, our world is fractured and dangerous. Eighty years since the Holocaust’s end, antisemitism is still with us – fuelled by the same lies and loathing that made the Nazi genocide possible.
And it is rising. Discrimination is rife. Hatred is being stirred-up across the globe.
One of the clearest and most troubling examples is the spreading cancer of Holocaust denial.
Indisputable historical facts are being distorted, diminished, and dismissed. Efforts are being made to recast and rehabilitate Nazis and their collaborators. We must stand up to these outrages.
We must promote education, combat lies, and speak the truth. And we must condemn antisemitism wherever and whenever it appears – as we must condemn all forms of racism, prejudice and religious bigotry which we see proliferating today.
Because we know these evils wither our morality, corrode our compassion, and seek to blind us to suffering – opening the door to atrocities.
The United Nations has long worked to combat antisemitism, through a wide range of activities, including our Holocaust Outreach programs.
And we recently launched our Action Plan on antisemitism, recommending the ways the United Nations System can further enhance those efforts. In these days of division it is all the more important – that we hold fast to our common humanity… And renew our resolve to defend the dignity and human rights of all.
Every one of us has a duty. The history of the Holocaust shows us what can happen when people choose not to see and not to act. And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prescribes that: “…every individual and every organ of society… shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms…”
Each of us must answer that call: denounce lies; resist hate; and ensure our common humanity overcomes division. These causes are at the very core of the United Nations.
We will never forget. And we will never waver in that fight.
