On January 27, 2025, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights convened an event at AJC commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day and appealing to diplomats and UN leaders to act with moral leadership and courage to affirm and confront the increasingly prevalent antisemitism, including Holocaust denial and distortion, that has instilled in many Jews an acute sense of alienation and hostility, including from the United Nations. The recording of the event can be viewed here.
Several participants affirmed their intention to take further efforts to promote Holocaust knowledge, counter the spread of hate, and promote greater respect for the human rights of all, including in cooperation with the United Nations. The launch on January 17, 2025 of the new UN Action Plan to Enhance Monitoring and Response to Antisemitism, was noted positively as a acknowledgement on the part of UN leaders of the need for institutional change. The event, in which over 90 guests, including 30 members of the diplomatic community in New York, immediately followed the official International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at United Nations Headquarters.
At the JBI event, Holocaust survivor Gabriella Major shared her personal story and underscored the impact of the alarming rise of antisemitism, recounting how one of her grandchildren has recently felt unsafe, isolated, and afraid to live on his college campus due to antisemitism, which she characterized as a disturbing echo of the discriminatory environment her parents and other European Jews experienced in the 1930s.
JBI Director Christen Broecker recalled JBI's decades-long effort, a priority of former JBI Director Felice Gaer, to encourage United Nations diplomats and leaders to act on their responsibility to acknowledge and confront antisemitism and promote knowledge of the Holocaust, including through the world body. She recalled that UN leaders and bodies refused to acknowledge the Holocaust for nearly 60 years after the organization's founding, noting that this shameful failing was finally corrected only as a result of the moral courage of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the constructive engagement with him by advocates including Annan's trusted communications adviser, Dr. Eve Epstein.
Annan's recognition of the Holocaust of the Jews and the need for the UN human rights agenda to address antisemitism were critical steps that encouraged Member States to act collectively to adopt resolutions recognizing the Holocaust, creating Holocaust remembrance and education programs, and condemning Holocaust denial. Despite the serious setbacks experienced over the past year, these are an enduring reminder of the potential for positive change at the UN even in extraordinarily difficult political contexts. Broecker pointed to the UN's new Plan of Action on Antisemitism as a welcome signal from UN Secretary-General and Under-Secretary-General Miguel Moratinos, the UN focal point on antisemitism, that the UN's senior leadership acknowledges that it has a responsibility to do more to address the surging antisemitism occurring around the world and at the UN today. She expressed JBI's commitment to continue working with UN system actors willing to implement the plan, ensure UN staff are educated to understand, recognize, and reject antisemitism, and lead the UN better fulfill its mission to improve protection of the rights of all, even at this especially challenging time.
U.S. Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10), the Democratic Chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, announced that he and other colleagues had reintroduced the Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons (HEAL) Act to to assess and propose strategies for improving Holocaust education around the United States. He underscored the critical role of Holocaust education, not only to combat rising Holocaust denial, but also to spur effective action to prevent genocide in places like Sudan, recalling, "we say 'never forget' on this day... but if you don't know what happened, you can't forget."
Gideon Taylor, President of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (Claims Conference) and President of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, recalled the pain that Holocaust survivors have experienced on and since October 7, 2023 and their enduring resilience. Taylor described the Claims Conference's work to negotiate and distribute aid for Holocaust survivors and allocate funding for Holocaust education, including $40 million in 2025, and noted that a new survey by the Claims Conference had found glaring deficits in Holocaust knowledge across eight countries in the United States and Europe. Taylor described contemporary challenges in the struggle to preserve both the truth and the uniqueness of the Holocaust, including Holocaust distortion, which entails efforts to minimize the scope of the Holocaust, misrepresent facts, or shift blame, and Holocaust inversion, in which the characteristics of the Nazis are attributed to Israel and to Israelis. Taylor stressed that Holocaust inversion, increasingly common today, distorts the history of the Holocaust and demeans the memory of the victims, describing it as "a trend that needs to be challenged at every step; through facts, through advocacy, and through education."
Acknowledging the many challenges to Holocaust education today including the dual-edged potential of emerging technologies like social media and AI, which can both perpetuate distortion and revolutionize Holocaust education, Taylor also stressed the value of using both old and new approaches to reach younger generations, noting a recent Claims Conference initiative on Instagram and a new Virtual Reality experience, Inside Kristallnacht, developed by the Claims Conference with USC Shoah Foundation, Meta, and UNESCO, that gives participants the experience of interacting virtually with a Holocaust survivor. Taylor noted that UNESCO's role in the project illustrates the important role that the UN and its actors can play in Holocaust memory and educating new generations about the imperative to combat hate and inspiring collective responsibility to prevent future atrocities.
Professor Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law, Conflict, and Global Development at the University of Reading (UK), who is a founding member of the the Intra-Communal Professorial Group on addressing antisemitism in UK academia and on campuses, affirmed that the explosion of antisemitism seen on U.S. university campuses is not an isolated phenomenon, but rather is occurring in countries including Brazil, the UK, Canada, and Australia, and stressed that it must be acknowledged and confronted. Freedman also reflected on the factors that have prevented the UN from effectively combating antisemitism despite the legacy of its founding, recalling that antisemitism is a problem in all but one of the UN's Member States. She speculated that the vast majority of UN staff lack the ability to recognize and confront antisemitism. Recalling that Felice Gaer's stewardship, power, and passion motivated had Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, then the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, to display great courage in writing the first a stand-alone report to the UN General Assembly on antisemitism as a human rights issue, she urged participants to follow her example and strive to work constructively with the UN rather than to undermine it. She pointed to vehicles like the new UN Action plan as opportunities to help move these discussions forward and press the organization to truly represent and consider the human rights of all people, including Jews, rather than dismissing its capacity to do so.
Jonathan Shrier, Acting ECOSOC Representative at the United States Mission to the UN recalled the leadership role that the U.S., home to the second largest population of Holocaust survivors in the world, has played in promoting Holocaust education, remembrance, and commemoration efforts at home and at the UN. Describing his own family history as a descendant of Holocaust victims and survivors, Shrier noted that his own decision to become an American diplomat was influenced by the courage of the diplomats from several countries that helped his family members and by their resilience during their escape from Poland and subsequent journey that culminated in their arrival in the U.S. He stressed the urgency of ongoing work to confront hatred and rising antisemitism and stand united against tyranny, lies, and hatred in all their forms, including by ensuring that current and future generations learn the history and lessons of and from the Holocaust so they feel a responsibility to stand up to injustice.
Adva Vilchinski, Counsellor at the Mission of Israel to the UN, recounted her own history as a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor and observed the sense that Holocaust remembrance has taken on a new significance after October 7, 2023 as it has become clear that the danger of antisemitism remains ever-present. Expressing agreement with previous speakers, she agreed that there is a need for greater Holocaust knowledge and understanding of antisemitism, including among members of the UN diplomatic community, and called on participants to continue the important work of promoting efforts to combat antisemitism, stressing the value of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism as an educational and awareness-raising tool and the importance of these efforts to safety of Jews in Israel and around the world.
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