Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Repres

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Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
Susan E. Rice
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
New York, NY
January 27, 2011






FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Today, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the United Nations commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day and recalls its history as an institution forged from the devastation of World War II. The UN’s founding values pledge to stand against tyranny, war, and the unimaginable cruelty that led to the Holocaust.
All of us have an abiding responsibility to remember these commitments—today and every day. Atrocities are not inevitable. They are perpetrated by those who choose cruelty and see division as a path to power. They are abetted by those who stand by. And they are repeated in the midst of those who forget.
The United States seeks a world in which we have truly learned the lessons of the Holocaust, of Cambodia, of Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur—a world that remembers the terrible sorrows of the past and works together to ensure that they are never again repeated.
Therefore, we must stand up to those who deny the plain facts of history. We must celebrate the different ways in which we have been created. And we must work together to resist the preachers of division and to keep faith with those hounded by demagogues and killers.
The Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said that “memory has become the sacred duty of all people of goodwill.” On this day of remembrance, the United States stands with all those who pledge never to forget.
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PRN: 2011/015