Secretary-General's Message for International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the Holocaust’s end. 

We mourn the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, as they sought to destroy an entire people. 

We grieve the Roma and Sinti, the people with disabilities, and all others enslaved, persecuted, tortured, and killed. 

We stand alongside victims, survivors and their families. 

And we renew our resolve never to forget. 

To allow the Holocaust to fade from memory would dishonour the past and betray the future. 

Remembrance is a moral act. And a call to action. 

To know the history of the Holocaust is to know the depths to which humanity can sink… 

To understand how the Nazis were able to commit their heinous crimes, with the complicity of others… 

And to comprehend that each of us has a solemn duty – to speak-up against hate, and to stand-up for the human rights of all. 

Following the hell of the Holocaust, countries came together. And they enshrined the dignity of every person in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

In dark times, that document remains a shining light. 

Eighty years since the Holocaust’s end, antisemitism is still with us – fuelled by the same lies and loathing that made the Nazi genocide possible. 

And it is rising. 

Discrimination is rife... 

Hate is being whipped-up the world over…

Indisputable historical facts are being distorted, diminished, and denied…

And efforts are being made to recast and rehabilitate Nazis and their collaborators. 

We must stand up to these outrages.

In these days of division – and more than a year since the appalling 7th October terror attacks by Hamas – we must hold fast to our common humanity. 

We must condemn antisemitism – just as we must condemn all forms of racism, prejudice and religious bigotry. 

And we must renew our resolve to defend the dignity and human rights of all. 

Those causes go to the very core of the United Nations. 

We will never forget – and we will never waver in that fight.