Writings & Remarks

Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27, 2024

Tags Public Statements

Dear Members of the Hamilton Community,

In 2005, hoping that the Holocaust would “forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice,” the United Nations designated January 27 as a day to commemorate the millions of Jews and huge numbers of others who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Among those who survived was Elie Wiesel. Following his liberation from Buchenwald in 1945, Wiesel devoted his life to working for peace. That commitment, according to the committee that awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize, “originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people,” but soon included “all repressed peoples and races.”

In 1999, while working at the National Security Council, I was asked by President Clinton to organize a presidential mission for Wiesel to visit refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania during the war in Kosovo. Traveling with Wiesel and listening to his conversations with people who had fled ethnic cleansing was profoundly moving. Despite everything he had endured, despite losing his parents and his little sister in Nazi extermination camps, Wiesel retained his faith in humanity and his conviction that “one person of integrity can make a difference.”

As war continues to rage in Israel and Gaza and so many other parts of the world, we would all do well to remember Wiesel’s message “of peace, atonement and human dignity.”

David