Prime Minister Oreskovic says: Don't forget Holocaust

 

The Day is observed on 27 January in memory of 27 January 1945, when Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, was liberated by Soviet Red Army troops.

 

In those concentration camps, people who were reduced to numbers out of hatred, were killed, Oreskovic said.

 

He said that whenever people remembered the Holocaust, they should raise the question of how it had been possible that somebody had devised such a pathological way of thinking and action.

 

"It is easy to say today this should never happen again, and all should be done to ensure that it (the Holocaust) never happens again," the Prime Minister said, adding that instruments for preventing such a way of thinking and action are democracy, human rights, mutual forgiving, dialogue and tolerance.

 

Oreskovic warned that nowadays there were also some groups fostering ideas about totalitarianism, and the world must be united against all who "pave the way for new Holocausts by denying the Holocaust."

 

Croatia must be a part of that world and take part in that struggle, not only because of the fact that some members of the Croatian people had committed crimes (in WWII) but also because of our future, that will rule out such crimes, he added.

 

Parliament Speaker Zeljko Reiner said that a nation that fails to remember its past is doomed to repeat it.

 

Reiner also said that the Jews who remained in Croatia had left an indelible mark, and in this context he mentioned several prominent Jews in Croatian culture.

(Text and photo: Hina)