18 No. 74 JUSTICE allenberg Commemoration* We meet at a historical inflection point of remembrance and reminder, of bearing witness and warning, of learning and acting upon the lessons of history. We meet in the wake of the 80th anniversary of the arrest and disappearance into the Soviet gulag of Swedish diplomat, hero of the Holocaust, Raoul Wallenberg, who demonstrated how one person with the compassion to care and the courage to act can confront evil, prevail, and transform history. We meet in the shadow of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the death camps, including the death camp Auschwitz, the most brutal extermination camp of the 20th century. 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz; 1.1 million of them were Jews. Jews were murdered at Auschwitz because of antisemitism, but antisemitism did not die at Auschwitz. It remains the bloodied canary in the mineshaft of global evil today, and a standing threat to our democracies and human security. Finally, we meet in the shadow of horrors that have continued to be manifested in Israeli and Jewish history since the Holocaust, horrors too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened. These were perpetrated not only by a terrorist organization, but by an antisemitic genocidal statelet: Hamas. Not because I say so, but because they say so, having affirmed it in their founding charter of 1988 and since – and in the aftermath of October 7 undertaking to commit October 7, I am quoting Hamas leaders, “again and again and again,” until Israel's annihilation. One would have thought that this would have resulted not only in a global condemnation of antisemitism, but in fact global action against antisemitism. Regrettably, we have seen denial even that these atrocities took place. The silence, the support for them, the justification of them, the celebration and glorification of them in the public squares and campus squares, as we witness an unprecedented global explosion of antisemitism. And as I said, this must stand as a warning to us all. Because antisemitism, as we have learned only too painfully and too well, does not only threaten Jews, it threatens us all. And it requires a whole of government and a whole of civil society to combat it. And so, I close by saying that I am encouraged when I witness the scholarship students today, because they represent the best and they represent the future and that gives us a future of hope – inspired also by the memory and the heroism of Raoul Wallenberg, who, as he put it when confronted with evil, said, “There was no other choice.” And for us, there must be no other choice: not only to learn, but to act upon the lessons of history. Time to Get to the Bottom of the Mystery Surrounding Raoul Wallenberg** January 17 marks Raoul Wallenberg Day, in remembrance of, and in tribute to, the Swedish diplomat – Canada’s first honorary citizen and an honorary citizen of the United States, Australia, and Israel – who demonstrated that one person with the compassion to care, and the courage to act, can confront evil, prevail, and transform history. From mid-May to the beginning of July 1944, some 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz – the fastest, cruelest and most efficient killing field in the Holocaust. Wallenberg arrived in Budapest as a member of the Swedish Legation in July 1944 and, in a remarkable demonstration of ingenuity, inspiration, bluff, and bravado, rescued upwards of 100,000 Jews. 80th Anniversary of Raoul Wallenberg’s Disappearance Irwin Cotler * Remarks at the 36th Raoul Wallenberg Scholarship Ceremony, Tel Aviv University, April 7, 2025. ** Written by Irwin Cotler and published in the NATIONAL POST on January 21, 2025. The piece delves into the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who disappeared after being detained by the Soviet Union in 1945, despite his heroic efforts to save thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. W
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgzNzA=