Centre Simon Wiesenthal - Verbe et Lumiere-Vigilance 66 rue Laugier - 75017 Paris Tel. +33-147237637 csweurope@gmail.com
“This programme has become a tradition with a contemporary meaning: commemorating the Holocaust is not just about the past,but about human dignity in the present and countering all - including sometimes subtle - forms of antisemitism” UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova
This university Holocaust essay competition programme, co-organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre-Europe, (CSW), theAssociation Verbe et Lumière-Vigilance (VL-V) and the Russian Holocaust Centre (RHC), each year. invites to Paris the five student winners from across the former Soviet. Union, topresent their research findings at UNESCO.
The 2014 laureates from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Orel in Russia and Vitebsk in Belarus were chosen from almost 3,000submissions.
Attended by the Delegations of Russia, Belarus, Canada, Germany and Israel, the proceedings were opened by Genc Seiti,Director of the UNESCO Division for National Commissions and Civil Society. He commended the laureates' initiative for, not only keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust inRussia, but contributing to respect, tolerance and human rights worldwide.
UNESCO Director General, Irina Bokova described the programme as “becoming a tradition with a contemporary meaning”emphasizing that “commemorating the Holocaust is not just about the past but about human dignity in the present and countering all - including subtle - forms of antisemitism.Read letter from Ms. Bokovahere...Roger Cukierman, President of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), spoke of his family’s fatein Treblinka, adding “for Jews memory is a duty. For UNESCO it is a defence of human values. Europe, where the Holocaust took place is where antisemitism is now flourishing. Theextreme left promoters of “BDS” are de facto antisemites,as the boycott is not against China, Russian, Qatar – only against Israel... Several thousand French Muslims haveconverted to Jihadism. These are ticking bombs that will target Jews, but not just Jews.”
French child of survivors, Rabbi Pauline Bebe, presented three axioms for Holocaust memory:
a) As we pass from eye witnesses to pages of history, memory must become vigilance against any germ oftotalitarianism b) Attention to the traumas of the grandchildren of survivors, in providing a service to repair. c) Edmond Fleg’s definition of “I am a Jew” as a route map taking the memory of the past into a promise for thefuture.
Dr. Ilya Altman, RHC Chair, spoke of the universal applicability of Holocaust research ”why, otherwise would Frenchintellectuals, journalists and politicians have come to UNESCO to hear Russian papers over the past ten years?” He noted that “each year, the laureates are judged and chosen bythe previous winners under the title: Holocaust Memory as the Road to Tolerance”. He viewed his work as a paradigm reflected in the forthcoming 10th Anniversary of the BeslanSchool siege in North Ossetia: “the murder of children anywhere is too redolent of the Holocaust”.
Altman then introduced the laureates, who each presented an abstract of their paper:
- Yuliya Bakhir, Vitebsk, Belarus, on “Historiography of the Holocaust in Belarus” - Aleksander Nekrasov, Orel State University Law School, on “Banning Holocaust Denial – A Model Formula” - Yuliia Fastovskaya, Moscow State Humanitarian University, on “The Elimination of the Intellectual Elite of Soviet Societyduring the Holocaust – The Example of Psychiatrist Sabina Spielrein” - Yuliia Sinelnik, St. Petersburg State Pedagogical University Faculty of Fine Arts on “Art Symbols of theHolocaust” - Irina Vasilyva, St. Petersburg State University, on “Personal Experience: “How to Preserve Holocaust Memory amongst SchoolStudents”
Left to right: Dr. S. Samuels, SWC Director, RHC Chair Dr.I.Altman, Laureates: Mr. A. Nekrasov, Ms. Fastovskaia, D-G,Irina Bokova, Laureates: Ms. Bakhir, Ms. Vasileve, RHC President Alla Gerber & Ms. Sinelnik Laureate
Alla Gerber, President of the Russian Holocaust Centre (RHC) and Member of the Duma Parliamentary Special Chamber, pointed to political parties that "include the words, Russian,Slavic or Motherland in their name,who promote xenophobia, whether against blacks, yellows or the different,all have antisemitism at their base. Openly Nazi parties have appeared.Last year 27 people were killed, 178 wounded, 94 threatened from different national groups in the Russian Federation... This project has brought us a gift of so many youngnon-Jews working with us on Holocaust memory!”
Verbe et Lumière – Vigilance, Lithuanian-born child survivor, Alexandre Kaplan, told of his work in post-Soviet Lithuania,where the Holocaust is distorted or unknown.
Centre Simon Wiesenthal-France President Richard Odier, thanked UNESCO’s Director-General for her support in the fight formemory and against antisemitism, calling on the laureates to “be active against today’s genocide in Sudan and atrocities in Nigeria and to add the three assassinated youngIsraelis to the casebook.”
The Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, thanked UNESCO and Special Advisor Dr. Graciela Samuelsfor conceiving this event. He added that “our first meeting in 2004 was based on 27 essays. This is our 10th, for which we received almost 3,000. Therefore we have 50 winnerschosen from over 11,000 essays”.
He proposed that “UNESCO publish the 50 papers together with messages from the keynote speakers of each annual session”. TheDirector General encouraged the editing of such a volume.
Samuels concluded in congratulating Alla Gerber and Ilya Altman for “creating a new generation across the former Soviet Unionof some 11,000 messengers and militants for tolerance and multipliers against extremism. May their efforts grow exponentially from year to year.”
Left to Right: Israel DCM, Dr. G. Samuels UNESCO, Canada DCM, the five Russian Holocaust laureates, Rabbi P. Bebe, D-GIrina Bokova, Israel Ambassador Barkan, RHC President Alla Gerber, SWC-France President Richard Odier, CRIF President Roger Cukierman, RHC Chair Dr. I. Altman, Belarus DCM,SWC Director Dr. S. Samuels, Russia DCM, Germany DCM, Verbe et Lumiere Alexandre Kaplan & Dr. M. Altman
For further information please contact Shimon Samuels on 0033609770158
