WHITE PLAINS – The battle cry of “never again” was heard loud and clear on Friday as the world commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where thousands upon thousands of Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany in World War II.
In Westchester County, the day was marked by a brief ceremony sponsored by County Executive George Latimer and the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center, whose executive director is Millie Jasper.
“My fervent wish is that you, we, I, listen and watch carefully and act appropriately and fiercely when we see or hear an anti-Semitic statement or when and if we are witness to an anti-Semitic action,” she said. “The most important thing that we can do is to speak up, speak out and teach the younger generation to do the same.”
Latimer said the county condemns anti-Semitism ands any form of hate against a specific group.
“We can either appreciate our common humanity or we can set ourselves against each other for hatreds perceived that advances somebody’s interest and causes the death of many others,” he said. “That’s what happened in the Holocaust. We are remembering today that this happened. These people lived and they died, and they died through evil. We can never forget that. And we also have to know that we never forget this because that threat still exists and given the wrong set of circumstances, could rise again.”
Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust along with millions of others – political dissidents, members of the LGBTQ community and others, and the message to the world is “never again.”
