SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE - EUROPE
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 Lessons of "Kristallnacht" International Seminar at UNESCO

Paris, 

Five years of Nazi rule preceding "Kristallnacht" should have set off shrill alarm bells. The response, however, was appeasement, Nelson's eye and a deaf ear. Demonization, delegitimization, boycott, exclusion and assault on the Jews should have shaken every government and all concerned with civic responsibility.

Have we learned the lessons well enough to apply them pre-emptively and preventively? Is recurrence inevitable?

An international seminar, organized by Association Verbe et Lumière – Vigilance and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, was opened by UNESCO Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura, in Paris.

<--Photo: UNESCO Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura with Michael Phillips, Harriet Tamen (both of Verbe et Lumière - Vigilance), Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Shimon Samuels.

A historical overview of the "Night of Broken Glass" – the November 1938 prelude to the Holocaust – was given by Diane Afoumado, Rabbi Pauline Bebe and Michael Berkowitz.

A session, entitled "Ever Again", held a series of eye-witness testimonies to "Kristallnacht" itself (Paul Schaffer), assaults on Roma in 1938 and today (Ian Hancock), atrocities in Rwanda (Assumpta Mugiraneza) and in Bosnia (Muhamed Mesic).

Under the theme of "Warnings Ignored", media responsibility then and now was examined, with case studies from France, Italy and the Maghreb (Michel Gurfinkiel, Martino Pablo Oro, Jacky Kadoch and Robert Assaraf, Michel Zerbib, Gideon Kouts).

On "Warnings Ahead", Vatican Secretary for Relations with the Jews, Father Norbert Hofmann, addressed the role of the Church, the Centre's Associate Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, presented online hate-incitement, and columnist Amir Taheri drew parallels with the genocidal language and intent of Iran's Ahmadinejad.

Introduced by Verbe et Lumière's Harriet Tamen, the keynote speaker on "Lessons, Risks, Responses" was British historian Sir Martin Gilbert, who spoke of available mechanisms of rescue and intervention.

In the presence of UNESCO officials and diplomats, the 50-panel exhibition, "Nazi Euthanasia of the Handicapped: Hitler's First Victims" was inaugurated by its creator, Giovanni de Martis of the Italian Historical Association "Olokaustos". The exhibit will now begin an international tour.

The seminar was closed by Verbe et Lumière President, Michael Phillips, and Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr Shimon Samuels, with the day summarized by Eric de Rothschild, President of the Paris Memorial to the Shoah.

For further information, please contact Shimon Samuels at +33.609.77.01.58.

<--Photo: International première of the exhibition "Nazi Euthanasia of the Handicapped: Hitler's First Victims"  L-R: Graham Morris (Chairman of SWC-UK), Ambassador Giuseppe Moscato (Permanent Delegate of Italy to UNESCO), Assumpta Mugiraneza(University of Kigali, Rwanda), Graciela Samuels (UNESCO), Giovanni Costantini (Olokaustos, Venice), Ambassador Catherine Colonna (Permanent Delegate of France to UNESCO), Adv. Harriet Tamen (Verbe et Lumière), Michael Phillips (Verbe et Lumière), Ambassador Günter Overfeld (Permanent Delegate of Germany to UNESCO), Giovanni De Martis (Olokaustos, Venice), Sir Martin Gilbert, Eric de Rothschild (President, Mémorial de la Shoah), Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Shimon Samuels

The proceedings will soon be available on www.verbelumiere.org and www.wiesenthal-europe.com