Holocaust Remembrance Day: Auschwitz Director warns of fading memory
By Fr. Paweł Rytel-Andrianik
“Our post-war world is falling apart. Profound changes are affecting not only culture and spirituality, but also politics and international law. I believe we are living in times when we need memory far, far more than we ever imagined we would,” says Piotr Cywiński in an interview with Vatican News.
Speaking on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum emphasizes that Holocaust survivors “passed on what they were able to pass on, and what they believed we would be capable of understanding—experiences that come from a completely different world, the one they encountered in the camp.”
And, he adds, “I think today’s world—and even more so the world of tomorrow—will need a community capable of drawing consequences for the future from human experience. That is why it is so important that the experience of this now-passing generation endures for as long as possible.”
By a 2005 decision of the United Nations, International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The purpose of the day is to honour the memory of the victims of Jewish origin who were murdered during the Second World War by Nazi Germany.
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