Holocaust Remembrance Day
Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorated on the 27th January, provided us with an opportunity to turn our minds to the tragedy of the genocide that occurred during World War II, and to mourn the millions of innocent lives that were lost, victims of the barbaric Nazi regime. It is also the occasion to acknowledge the importance of educating future generations about the Holocaust and its lessons
The Alliance Française du Delhi helped mark this day by inviting 300 students, from 12 to 15 years-old, and from Indian, German, and French schools to watch some short films and look at a presentation on the lives of Jewish children under the Nazi regime, and this allowed them and their teachers to engage with this most difficult of subjects.
It is not easy for teachers to speak about millions of people being killed just because of their religion, their sexual orientation, their disabilities or their ethnicity.
It is not easy for students to understand the importance of learning these facts, and sometimes to have to watch terrible and even horrible images of thousands of dead bodies, these images are traumatic in themselves and therefore they demand the vital resource of mediators – and in this context I mean professional educators -to explain them and to contextualize them.
In the general process of school education, teachers are necessary; in teaching History, and in particular subjects like the Holocaust, teachers are essential: they are the gatekeepers and guides through our shared past, and their responsibility is huge; I would like to thank all of them for accepting this delicate, complex and crucial mission.
As we all know, 2025 will mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Death Camp by the Soviet Army on the 27th January 1945. The chances of having living survivors with us on that occasion is increasingly low. We are loosing the first hand witnesses of the atrocities committed there, both the victims, and the troops who liberated them. They, the survivors and the liberators, have been the strongest defence against Holocaust deniers. We must ensure that their stories are heard and their memories kept alive, and education is the only way to do so.