Holocaust Remembrance Day - Educating for a Better Future

Today is the International Day of commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. This year's theme: Educating for a Better Future, is apt to ensuring that the atrocities of the past not happen again.

Yet, as cited in statement marking today's remembrance by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp survivor, Primo Levi, warns: "It happened, therefore it can happen again." 

Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein in observing the memory of the Holocaust said: " This painful day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust forces us to contemplate the horrors to which bigotry, racism and discrimination ultimately lead."

He added:"...we must recognize that only if we regard each other as fully equal in dignity and rights will we be able to come together to overcome the many challenges facing humanity."

Seventy-two-years-ago, the dreaded Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated. Since then, the world has stood up to prevent similar horrors and the international community must continue to resist the ambitions of a few men to plunge 2017 back into the dark ages of human rights.