Lyuba Lyubchyk: The memory of the Holocaust is a warning to all humanity

by Lyuba Lyubchyk, Chair of the UWC’s International Educational Coordinating Council (IECC).

Source: Lyubchyk on Facebook

“Jews are being led away endlessly. People hide them, but the Germans find them and take them away. Even now, gunfire can still be heard in Babyn Yar”

(I. Khorushonova, The First Year of the War).

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked on Jan. 27. On this day, we also honor Ukrainians who, risking their own lives, hid Jews from fascist terror.

Ukraine ranks number three on the number of countries who helped save the lives of Jews on Israel’s Righteous Among the Nations list. 

On Jan. 27, 1945, soldiers of the First Ukrainian Front liberated the prisoners of Auschwitz, revealing to the world the truth about the conveyor belt of death that claimed the lives of 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million from Ukraine.

The Mémorial de la Shoah is the Holocaust Museum in Paris, located in the city’s fourth arrondissement, in the historic Marais district, which was home to a large Jewish population at the start of World War II. 

The museum opened its doors in 2005, with then–French President Jacques Chirac attending the inauguration. Admission is free, allowing as many visitors as possible to fully grasp the scale of the tragedy of the Jewish people.

I previously recommended the film Simone, le voyage du siècle (Simone: The Journey of the Century), which tells the story of the remarkable Simone Veil (née Jacob). Born into a Jewish family during World War II and having survived the inhuman conditions of Auschwitz, she later became France’s minister of health under several governments and a leading figure in the fight for women’s rights.

The film left such a strong impression on me that I felt compelled to visit this place of tragic memory as well (“Shoah” means “catastrophe” in Hebrew).

At the Memorial’s Wall of Names, among thousands of murdered Jews, I found the names of Simone Veil’s parents, brothers, and sisters.

These are not just names engraved in stone. They represent more than six million lives destroyed solely because of their identity.

The walls of mourning bear the names of more than 76,000 Jews deported from France to Nazi concentration camps, including 11,400 children. Inside the museum are walls covered with photographs of those executed, tortured, burned alive, and murdered, alongside their personal belongings, jewelry, and family relics. Behind every image, video, and archival document of survival in the camps lies immeasurable pain and despair.

It is devastating to realize that genocide is once again unfolding in the heart of Europe. This time, it is hostile Russia destroying the Ukrainian nation. The methods are the same — equally brutal and brazen.

It hurts deeply.