Genocide and the Holocaust – the reality

The term “genocide” was coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, combining the Greek “genos” (race or tribe) and Latin “cide” (killing). It signifies a coordinated plan to destroy the essential foundations of life of national groups.

Lemkin was driven by the failure to punish the Ottoman Empire’s actions against Armenians in WWI, and later, the loss of 49 family members in the Holocaust. He succeeded in having “genocide” included in the Nuremberg indictment against Nazi leadership, though it was not yet recognised as a distinct legal crime at that point.

According to Wikipedia the term “holocaust”, derived from a Greek word meaning “burnt offering”, was an ordinary English word for centuries also meaning “destruction or sacrifice by fire” or, figuratively, “massacre”. During the 1950s, it started to become the most common word used to describe the Nazi extermination of Jews. However at a time when our war of survival is fought with words as much as in the battlefield, like “genocide” it too has had its meaning degraded through misuse for propaganda purposes irrelevant to its origins and intent, referring to a unique event in the annals of history.

On December 11, 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations resolved that genocide was a crime under international law. This was approved and ratified as a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948. The convention defines genocide as: “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, by:

• killing members of the group
• causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
• deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
• imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
• forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

A number of specific actions have been deemed to be punishable under the convention. These are:

• genocide
• conspiracy to commit genocide
• direct and public incitement to commit genocide
• attempt to commit genocide
• complicity in genocide

So much for genocide per se. But further to the above, the founding document of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the Stockholm Declaration, outlines the principles that guide the organisation and its member countries.

The declaration was the outcome of the International Forum convened in Stockholm between January 27-29, 2000, by former Swedish prime minister Göran Persson. The forum was attended by the representatives of 46 governments including 23 heads of state or prime ministers and 14 deputy prime ministers or ministers.

It reads as follows:

We, High Representatives of Governments at the Stockholm International

Forum on the Holocaust, declare that:

1. The Holocaust (Shoah) fundamentally challenged the foundations of civilisation. The unprecedented character of the Holocaust will always hold universal meaning. After half a century, it remains an event close enough in time that survivors can still bear witness to the horrors that engulfed the Jewish people. The terrible suffering of the many millions of other victims of the Nazis has left an indelible scar across Europe as well.

2. The magnitude of the Holocaust, planned and carried out by the Nazis, must be forever seared in our collective memory. The selfless sacrifices of those who defied the Nazis, and sometimes gave their own lives to protect or rescue the Holocaust’s victims, must also be inscribed in our hearts. The depths of that horror, and the heights of their heroism, can be touchstones in our understanding of the human capacity for evil and for good.

3. With humanity still scarred by genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, the international community shares a solemn responsibility to fight those evils. Together we must uphold the terrible truth of the Holocaust against those who deny it. We must strengthen the moral commitment of our peoples, and the political commitment of our governments, to ensure that future generations can understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences.

4. We pledge to strengthen our efforts to promote education, remembrance and research about the Holocaust.

5. We share a commitment to encourage the study of the Holocaust in all its dimensions. We will promote education about the Holocaust in our schools and universities, in our communities and encourage it in other institutions.

6. We share a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honour those who stood against it. We will encourage appropriate forms of Holocaust remembrance, including an annual Day of Holocaust Remembrance, in our countries.

7. We share a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust. We will take all necessary steps to facilitate the opening of archives in order to ensure that all documents bearing on the Holocaust are available to researchers.

8. We empathise with the victims’ suffering and draw inspiration from their struggle. Our commitment must be to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.

In January 2020, as the world marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, ministers from the 34 countries of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted an amended ministerial declaration to underline and renew the commitments made in the 2000 Stockholm Declaration.

That statement concluded saying: “It is appropriate that the Alliance declares its commitment to plant the seeds of a better future amidst the soil of a bitter past.”

Need anything be added to the above? But does it prevail in the current climate where antisemitism runs rampant?

Never again!

Am Yisrael chai!

Shabbat shalom,

Yossi