The Diplomat
The Senate hosted this Tuesday, for the tenth consecutive year, the State Ceremony for the Official Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Prevention of Crimes against Humanity, organized by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain and the Sephardic-Israeli Center.
The event was presided over by the President of the Senate, Pedro Rollán, and included the participation of the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Víctor Ángel Torres; the President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCE), David Obadía; the Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diego Martínez Belío; the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez; and the Secretary of State for Education, Alberto de la Rosa Díaz.
The ceremony, held in the Old Senate Chamber, also brought together representatives of the Jewish and Roma communities and was moderated by José Thovar, Director General of the Sefarad-Israel Center and head of the Spanish Delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
The International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust was adopted by the UN General Assembly and the European Parliament in 2005 and is observed annually on January 27, the date of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. In Spain, the commemoration of this day was established by the Council of Ministers on December 10, 2004.
David Obadía
During his address, David Obadía warned that “the seed of the Holocaust was antisemitism.” “It didn’t begin with gas chambers, but with words, accusations, insults, prejudice, and marginalization; all of this gradually permeated society and led to the greatest massacre of human beings by an advanced, industrialized country, where intellectuals and artists were at the forefront of the world,” he continued.
“While acknowledging all the historical differences, it is necessary to point out and make it clear that we, the Spanish Jews, have been experiencing these insults, accusations, prejudices, and attacks for the past two years,” he asserted. “It is common to find on social media the accusation that we Jews are doing the same thing the Nazis did to us: this is perversion at its most extreme,” Obadía denounced.
“They attack us, they insult us, they call us fascists, genocidal maniacs, and murderers, and this is happening with an intensity never before seen in Spain,” the president of the FCJE affirmed. “Modern antisemitism also disguises itself as anti-Zionism and seeks the dismantling of the State of Israel, the disappearance of the place where the Jewish people exercise their legitimate right to self-determination,” he added.
Ángel Víctor Torres
For his part, Ángel Víctor Torres asserted that, through the Holocaust, “the darkest and most terrible moment in European history,” the “Nazi genocidal terror attempted to change the face of the continent forever, but its failure and the terrible lessons learned allowed us to forge the Europe in which we live, with its lights and shadows, but where democratic values and respect for human rights have taken root.”
According to the minister, “the memory of the Shoah” must be “transmitted to young people through education and the cultivation of democratic memory.” “It is intolerable that the Holocaust be trivialized, distorted, or relativized,” he affirmed. “Remembering means renewing our ethical commitment to resist the constant threat of positions that look back on those dark times with nostalgia,” the minister warned.
For this reason, Torres asked that remembrance be transformed “into an immediate moral revulsion and, subsequently, into a forceful and active condemnation.” “Resisting in the past, in the present, and in the future means firmly defending our principles, always remaining vigilant, and affirming that human rights are universal and sacred rights,” he continued. “Let us remember the Holocaust; let us not forget the perpetrators, and even less so their victims. Let us remember what happened so that we can fight against what, unfortunately, still persists,” he added.
“On this path, the 2023 National Plan to Combat Antisemitism is a key tool, focused on confronting this scourge which, far from disappearing after the Holocaust, continues to experience a worrying increase worldwide, including in our country. And it is our duty as democrats to put a stop to all forms of discrimination,” he insisted.