OTTAWA, May 5, 2005 – The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler, rose in the House of Commons on Holocaust Memorial Day to speak “of things in human history that are too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened.” He said that we must ask ourselves today, “what have we learned? What must we do?”

Minister Cotler outlined four lessons to be learned. The first lesson is the importance of remembrance - of understanding that the genocide of six million “is not a matter of abstract statistics. Unto each person there is a name. Unto each person there is an identity. Each person is a universe.”

The second enduring lesson of the Holocaust is that these genocidal murders succeeded not only because of the industry of death but because of the ideology of hate.

The third lesson is the dangers of silence, the consequences of indifference and the responsibility to act as in the “genocide by attrition” in Darfur.

The fourth lesson is the need to combat mass atrocity and the culture of impunity – and to bring the war criminals to justice.

The Minister closed with a call to action: “That never again will we be indifferent to racism and hate; that never again will we be silent in the face of evil; that never again will we indulge anti-semitism – old and new; that never again will we be indifferent in the face of mass atrocity and impunity. We will speak and we will act against racism, against hate, against atrocity, against injustice.”

This day must not only be an act of remembrance, which it is, but also a remembrance to act. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse - whoever remains indifferent indicts himself or herself.

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Ref. :

Denise Rudnicki
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of Justice
(613) 992-4261