Wiesenthal Center Participates in UN High-Level Srebrenica Commemoration, urges “Active and Accurate Remembering as a Key to Genocide Prevention Today”

July 10, 2015

Mark Weitzman, the Director of Government Affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, joined UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, United States Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, Bosnia and Herzogovina UN Ambassador Mirsada Colakovic and other high-level dignitaries in commemorating the 20^th anniversary of the genocidal killings at Srebrenica which left over 8,000 innocent Bosnian civilians dead in what UN Secretary-General Ban has described as “the worst on European soil since the Second World War.”

Photo: Mr. Weitzman with Bosnia and Herzogovina UN Ambassador Mirsada Colakovic at UN

Mr. Weitzman said that “The act of commemoration is vitally important; for only by active and accurate remembering of previous failures to prevent genocide can we begin to draw appropriate lessons for today. We join in remembering the victims and the failure of the institutions that were supposed to protect them.  In a world where rogue states are attempting to obtain nuclear power and where radical religious extremism has become a political reality we must stand firm in combating those who preach and incite genocide today.”

 Mr. Weitzman concluded by saying that the Wiesenthal Center commended the words of US ambassador Samantha Power, who said: “Let me simply appeal to all gathered here that the resolve induced by the horror of Srebrenica be extended not only to commemorating the past, but to do far more to prevent genocide and mass atrocities in the present".

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).