PM’s Yom Hashoah message
DURING the past year, I visited the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne. I remarked that the more time passes from the Shoah, the more imperative it is to ensure that memories do not fade.
DURING the past year, I visited the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne. I remarked that the more time passes from the Shoah, the more imperative it is to ensure that memories do not fade. That history is not re-written. That the Holocaust and its meaning are represented to every generation. That we never fail to bear witness. That today, more than ever, we have to be the voice of those whose voice was stilled by the greatest crime humanity has ever known. The Shoah, the Holocaust, was of such moment, of such horrific magnitude, that the world can and should never be the same again.
A part of us must always be on guard, always aware, because we know the depths to which even educated men and women – an advanced civilisation – can, and did, sink. And so Yom Hashoah is a day to make a profound recommitment to our unalterable repudiation of all genocide for all time.
Today, we stand with the people of Israel, and for the security of Israel, as they unite in remembrance and grief. We stand with the survivors, and the descendants of survivors of Nazism, wherever they are throughout the world, as we say, “Never again.”
And we add our voices to all who live in hope for the triumph of humanity and goodwill for all peoples. Israel’s national anthem is Hatikva [The Hope]. We too, in Australia, choose to live in hope.
JULIA GILLARD
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