International Day of Commemoration for Victims of the Holocaust
Memorial Ceremony, General Assembly Hall
27 January 2012
STATEMENT
H.E. Rosemary DiCarlo, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations
[AS DELIVERED]
Thank you, Mr. Under-Secretary-General. It is an honor to be here on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Dr. Krell, it is an honor and privilege to hear your testimony.
The theme of this day of remembrance is particularly apt, and particularly painful. Usually, when we remember the Holocaust, we remember the adults who perished. After all, they had left some record of their lives. They had made some impression on the world. They had done things that could be remembered, and so they were remembered – by many, and above all, by the family members and friends who had escaped being devoured.
The children were different. They never had a chance to leave their mark. They are so painful to remember because their futures, their lives, were stolen in their entirety. And, of course, their murder is of a particular kind, in that it lays absolutely bare the horror of the Holocaust. Whatever mad delusions the authors of the Holocaust had about Jews as the enemy, these could hardly apply to children. This was genocide, simply and completely.
Perhaps this is why the diary of Anne Frank, when it was published in the 1950s, hit the world with such force, and continues to do so. In the summer of 1942, soon after she began keeping her diary and not long before she and her family went into hiding, Anne Frank wrote, “It seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl”. This was one of the few times when this wise young girl was utterly wrong.
Anne Frank left us an account of something that is rarely set down: a child’s innocent life as faithfully recorded by herself. She made the abstract real, and made our loss concrete. She helped us never to forget.
There are actually some, incredible as it always seems, who would deny that this Holocaust took place, or seek to minimize it as simply another episode in the long story of mankind’s crimes. But evidence matters. There is more than enough of it. And it lasts. We will fight denial for as long as it takes.
We will fight it for the sake of all those children who perished.
For those children did survive the horror, and went on to enrich our societies. Many went to Israel and to the United States. Between 1945 and 1952, more than 80,000 survivors moved to the United States. Some came later. Many have taken prominent positions that promote a better society, justice, respect for human rights, freedom of religion— people like Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Rabbi Arthur Schneier. I would like to pay tribute to them and the other survivors who are here today. It is an honor to be in your
presence, and to represent the United States in commemorating all the children who were lost. Elie Wiesel once said: “memory has become the sacred duty of all people of goodwill”. On this day of remembrance, the United States stands with all those who pledge never to forget.
Thank you.