In January this year, I attended the Holocaust Memorial Commemoration in City Hall. As usual, it was well attended. Also as usual, good people gave powerful talks: they told us about several stories of survival, and of the work being done to ensure that the worst genocide in history is not forgotten.
We must remember. This point was made repeatedly, recognising that the generation of eye witnesses is passing fast; the task of preserving these memories and passing them on now falls to others.
But, despite the good people and the vital message, the whole event seemed blinkered.
On the one hand, we were told we must remember so that such tragedies will not happen again; on the other hand, we were reminded that genocides have continued. This should not be a surprise to anyone who watches the news: it seems that our memory of the Holocaust has not prevented anything.
If we want to prevent future genocide, it seems to me that memory is just the first stage: we also need to understand what happened, and then act to prevent it from happening again – we need to understand the many genocides, with all their varying details, and act as best we can to prevent any genocide, anywhere, for any reason.
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