For the first time in South Africa, the United Nations commemorated the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust on Sunday at the Apartheid museum in Johannesburg. Despite the significance of this event, the turn out from the Jewish community was rather disappointing.
Besides for Holocaust survivors, the most prominent Jewish contingent was the South African Union of Jewish Students. The Israeli ambassador and representatives of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies were also present but that was about it. This is a real shame for the mainstream Jewish community missed an important opportunity to learn about the parallels between their experiences of national persecution and those of others who have been the victims of similar atrocities.
Choosing to use Holocaust Memorial Day to commemorate the Rwandan genocide at the Apartheid museum was not without its dilemmas. Given that this was the first time that the day was being commemorated in South Africa, surely it should have focused on the Holocaust exclusively? Does sharing (and thus universalizing) the day not also take away from the uniqueness of the tragedy that befell the Jewish people from 1939-1945? This sense was aggravated by the numerous UN posters and T-shirts on display referring to the ‘Sexual Holocaust’ taking place in the DRC. In fact, despite the large amount of UN literature handed out on serious human rights violations that have been committed around the globe, I saw nothing on the Jewish Holocaust.
To be honest, it was strange being at a Holocaust memorial without 6 flames or Jewish memorial prayers. But we need to understand that UN Holocaust Memorial Day is different to the Jewish one. The very dates chosen for both signify this. Our day of commemoration is linked to the date of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: a day when Jews decided to take their fate into their own hands and attempt to liberate themselves. The UN date is based on the allied liberation of Auschwitz: a day when the rest of the world came face to face with the horrors of the Holocaust.
Two different memorial days signifying a dual approach to Holocaust commemoration, I believe, is important. On Yom Hashoah we recognize what was done to us as the Jewish people and the need to ensure that we never let it happen again to us, while on UN Holocaust Memorial Day we recognize what was done to us means for humanity and the need to ensure that we never let it happen again to anybody. In this context, the ceremony I attended at the Apartheid Museum was both appropriate and extremely moving.
While we have been very successful in the former, there is much work still to be done on the latter. As Holocaust survivor Don Krause mentioned in his speech, we say never again and yet there was Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia and the Middle East. Anti-Apartheid lawyer George Bizos, another speaker at the event, argued that it was the continued denial of our common humanity by some that allows such horrors to continue. And it was echoed in the moving testimony of a Rwandan genocide survivor, who explained that her Tutsi ethnicity (something that had previously not been important to her) was what had sentenced her to death.
A special thank you should go to the newly appointed head of the Johannesburg Holocaust Centre, Tali Natis, who was clearly responsible for ensuring that this event took place. Hopefully next year the Jewish community will take Tali’s lead and will embrace this UN Holocaust Memorial as we do Yom Hashoah.
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