"Remember only that I was innocent and that, like all of you, mortals of this day... I too had a face marked by rage, by pity and by joy, an ordinary human face!"
Benjamin Fondane, a French Jew, wrote these poignant words in one of his final poems, Préface en Prose, before being murdered, shortly after his deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944. Fondane's plea for remembrance was frequently voiced by Jewish people persecuted by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II; an appeal for a solemn and everlasting commitment by all humanity to recall, in essence, every Holocaust victim. Fondane insisted that we never forget their humanity, their individuality.
Indeed, no two persons are identical. We each possess our own distinctive features, personality and traits, as well as the name given to us at birth. That name marks each of us as an individual, whose story—past and future—is forever unique.
Our names define us. Even when we leave this world, our names, and our stories, remain—for generations.
During the Shoah, the German Nazis and their collaborators sought not only to annihilate the entire Jewish people through an unprecedented and systematic campaign of mass murder. They also aimed to eradicate any trace of their culture and religion, of their very existence, down to the very last Jew. Even before arriving at the concentration and death camps, the Jews were marked as mere numbers by the Nazis and their collaborators. Once they had reduced the Jews to nameless masses, the perpetrators could more easily erase them.
By our understanding how the names and identities of the Holocaust victims were brutally stolen from them, we can better appreciate how important it is to remember them. Like Fondane, the final hope of many of the victims, aware that they were on the verge of death, was to be remembered. Thus, refusing to fade into oblivion, they demonstrated their undying human spirit. It is our duty to ensure the eternal fulfillment of that hope.
This is why Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, has for decades worked tirelessly to gather the names of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to commemorate them as individuals, down to the very last victim. The new Book of Names, being inaugurated at the United Nations Headquarters as part of the activities marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, displays the names and identities of 4,800,000 men, women, and children—cruelly and intentionally murdered simply because they were Jewish.
Sadly, less than 80 years following the murder of the Six Million, we encounter increasing ignorance and apathy worldwide regarding Holocaust awareness, especially among youth. We face an alarming proliferation of material in the physical and digital spheres which nefariously denies, distorts, trivializes, and whitewashes the Holocaust. This disgusting phenomenon has moved beyond the fringes into the social mainstream. We are witnessing a rise in antisemitism cloaked in new disguises, maliciously portraying the Jewish people and its State of Israel as existential threats to global wellbeing and peace. Thus, it is incumbent upon us to buttress efforts to foster Holocaust awareness, remembrance, and education. The world must be reminded where unchecked antisemitism ultimately leads.
The fact that The Book of Names is being displayed at the U.N., which was instituted with the express purpose of averting future crimes against humanity, sends a clear message to all those who deny history or turn a blind eye to it. It fulfils the last testament of another young Jewish victim of the Holocaust, who at the age of 19 wrote so succinctly in his last letter (in Vilna,1941): "I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger."
On this, the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops, where more than one million "nameless" Jews were slaughtered, we rekindle their identities by restoring their names. Our mission has never been more relevant, and our responsibility to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust and its victims will never abate. The Book of Names of Holocaust victims will help us, Jews and non-Jews, educators and statespersons, historians and influencers, citizens of the world, to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event. The names and the people they stand for serve as a beacon of light and warning against the mortal dangers of unconstrained antisemitism and racism, and exhort us to fulfil the vital 11th commandment: Remember.
The author serves as the chairman of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in Jerusalem. He previously served as Israel's consul general in New York.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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