The victims of the Holocaust were commemorated on Thursday in an event mounted at the Monument to the “Victims of Fascism” in Chisinau. The rally was attended by representatives of the country’s leadership, ambassadors, leaders of the Jewish community and the Roma community. President Maia Sandu said that for Moldova, the tragedy of the Jewish people, the Roma and all those who suffered on this land during the Holocaust is and will always be a deep wound, IPN reports.
“Every year we gather together to commemorate a human history chapter that is so dark that we can’t help but shudder every time we remember the plight of millions of people who fell victim to the Holocaust. But today it seems almost inappropriate to me to mention the word ‘history’. When we speak of history, we risk deceiving ourselves that the evil that led to this unprecedented atrocity remained somewhere in the past. It is not so. On October 7, 2023, other innocent people, children, women, older persons paid with their lives because minds perverted by hatred, which are ready to kill, torture, rape and maim, still exist in this world,” sated President Sandu.
The official noted that almost eight decades after it was said “never”, humanity helplessly witnessed a new tragedy. “We’re not talking about history. We’re talking about the present. A present that demonstrates once again that the lessons of the past have not been fully learned. A present where anti-Semitism remains widespread and where in many places, Jews still fear for their lives when they go to school, the synagogue or other places important to the life of their community,” said Maia Sandu.
According to her, at least now, in the 12th hour, a collective effort is needed worldwide so that hatred and prejudice can no longer take root because they are the sources of evil, which turn into monstrous crimes.
Alexander Bilinkis, president of the Jewish Community of Moldova, said that on January 27, 1945, one of the largest Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated. No less than 1.1 million people were destroyed there and one million of those people were Jews. Almost 80 years have passed, but memory must be kept alive. It is known that during World War II, the Nazis and their allies wiped out over 6 million Jews. In the Republic of Moldova, there are still 23 people alive who survived ghettos and concentration camps. They are over 80 years old. “We are obliged to know our own history and mitigate the risks of a repeat of those tragic events. The tragedy must never happen again and for this we all have responsibility,” stated Alexander Bilinkis.
In a message, Robert Cerari, president of the Bare-Rom Association, expressed his deep sorrow in memory of the victims of that terrible catastrophe witnessed World War II. “We also think with trembling hearts of the hundreds of thousands of Roma tortured by the Nazis in those dark days. We are once again appalled by the inhumanity of the crimes committed against the peoples of Europe. As we bow our heads in memory of the victims, we must also think of those who have experienced the horrors of mass destruction and who live close to us. It is our duty to take care of them, to offer them help, respect and the dignified old age they deserve,” noted Robert Cerari.
January 27 marks the liberation of Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust in which millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime during World War II. The choice of this date is linked to the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps in Poland on January 27, 1945. To this day, the exact number of Jews and Roma killed in the Holocaust is unknown. The figure most often pronounced by historians is more than 6 million people, 1.5 million of whom were children.
The Parliament of the Republic of Moldova in 2016 adopted the Declaration on the acceptance of the Final Report of the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust, chaired by Elie Wiesel, and January 27 was designated as the National Holocaust Remembrance Day.
