The president of the Federation of Jews of Spain, Isaac Benzaquén, called on the Spanish government to teach about the Holocaust in classrooms and to use education to prevent antisemitic attacks.
On Thursday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Spanish Senate held the State of Memory of the Holocaust and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity. During the event, Benzaquén pointed out that the annual ceremony serves not only to remember the victims of the Nazi regime, but also to “promote Holocaust education around the world,” according to the European Jewish Congress.
He said that antisemitism is “is still in force” with “acts of harassment and violence against the Jewish community.”
He mentioned subtle language in “political speeches,” “media” and “social networks” where “speeches of incitement to hatred against everything that has a Jewish content, character or meaning” are made.
“May the memory of our pain serve to prevent what happened,” Benzaquén said.
He called on democratic nations to turn the “experience of the Holocaust and its memory” into a “pedagogical tool” and to take Holocaust education to “schools and universities” so that young people are “aware of the meaning and consequences of antisemitism and all forms of racism and xenophobia.”
Benzaquén pointed out that it is important to “put the antisemite fight in the hands of teachers.”
“We must not wait for the crime, we must prevent it with education,” he said. It is essential to “bring the Holocaust to schools, classrooms, curricula and universities.”
The vice president of Amical Mauthausen, an association in memory of the history of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, talked about the idea of “remembering in order not to repeat” and also about “promoting and vindicating the dignity of the victims.”
The director of the Instituto de Cultura Gitana, Diego Luis Fernández, condemned antisemitic graffiti and other antisemitic acts that continue to occur, especially in synagogues or memorials to Holocaust victims.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)