Remembering Kristallnacht, UN chief says daily reminders of antisemitism are chilling
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NEW YORK – There is a need for “continued vigilance” against rising hatred and intolerance, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said at a ceremony in Manhattan to commemorate the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht.
“Kristallnacht was not just the night of broken glass, it was the night of broken lives and broken societies,” Guterres said at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York. “This museum calls on us to witness and summons us to speak.”
“‘Never again’ means telling the story again and again, especially in these times,” the secretary-general said, citing recent incidents targeting Jews, which he called “chilling daily reminders of the persistence of antisemitism.”
He specifically referenced repeated vandalization of Jewish graves and the mass shooting at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, which took place in October of last year.
Guterres said that terrorists and neo-Nazis are ramping up recruitment and radicalization, and that they use the Internet as a tool to spread bigotry. He said online efforts are specifically targeted at luring in young and vulnerable people. Guterres called for urgent action by parents, teachers and political leaders “before underground hatred becomes an overt and alarming new normal.”
He then assured the crowd that the UN is “fully engaged in this fight.”
Guterres, who served as the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015 and the prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, said he feels a personal connection to Jews because of his experience growing up in Portugal and learning that centuries earlier, his country had expelled the Jewish people under what he referred to as “total stupidity.”
“Portugal has paid an enormous price for their total stupidity in the expulsion of Jews,” Guterres said. “The Jews who were expelled provided enormous contributions [in their new homes].”
The ceremony commenced with the blowing of the only known surviving shofar from Auschwitz, which was smuggled out of the concentration camp in 1945, sounded by Rabbi Eli Babich of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue.
UN Ambassador Danny Danon, Museum of Jewish Heritage vice chairman George Klein and March of the Living President Phyllis Heideman spoke as well.
Danon echoed Guterres’s warning on the dangers of rising antisemitism.
“Anyone who has viewed the exhibit in this museum has become a witness [of the Holocaust],” Danon said. “Witnesses have an obligation to speak up because the past can repeat itself. Tonight we are remembering what happened on Kristallnacht. It is important not only because of the destruction that night, but also what is happening now. We know that it might happen again.”
Among audience members were a dozen Holocaust survivors, including media personality Ruth Westheimer.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage, three kilometers from the Statue of Liberty and
Ellis Island, is the third-largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second-largest in North America.
The museum has incorporated the exhibition “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away,” which features artifacts from more than 20 international museums and institutions. Items include suitcases, eyeglasses and shoes that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz.
The exhibition is scheduled through August 30, 2020.
Meanwhile, 75 tombstones were vandalized in the Temple Israel graveyard in Omaha, Nebraska, Walla reported on Saturday. The damage to the graveyard is estimated at $50,000, local paper Omaha World further reported.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report. to run