Newport Beach, CA – January 27, 2023 — Global Bank President Ron Nechemia issued the following statement on the 78th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Today, we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day by remembering the six million Jews and millions of other victims of Nazism who were persecuted and systematically murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators murdered over six million Jews. The Holocaust, also known as the “Shoah” in Hebrew, is the Hebrew word for “catastrophe,” which was Nazi Germany's "Germany’s “Final Solution” for annihilating all Jews within Nazi Germany’s grasp. Approximately two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population had been murdered by the end of this heinous act.
The Holocaust was a disaster not only for the Jewish people in Europe but also for all those persecuted during the Nazi era and, indeed, for all humanity. As such, it contains lessons for all of humanity.
“Many people believed that the horrors of WWII — the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations, the Holocaust — could never happen again. And yet they have in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, and most recently in Bucha, Ukraine. This decade has shown that man’s capacity for evil knows no bounds. Genocide — the annihilation of an entire people based on ethnic, national origin, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part — has also become a word of our time, a stark and haunting reminder of why our vigilance must be unwavering,” says Ron Nechemia the President of the Global Bank Group on the accession of International Holocaust Remembrance Day – January 27, 2023.
Over the past year, we have all witnessed themes ranging from violations of men’s and women’s rights to unspeakable atrocities, all of which amount to war crimes against Ukrainian civilians. We recognise, once again, that human rights are at the heart of every major challenge confronting humanity and that human rights are at the heart of every solution we devise.
My thoughts and prayers are with all families affected by this horrific Bucha Massacre, and other places in Ukraine and other conflict zones, especially those who have lost or are still missing loved ones, refugees and displaced people –– largely innocent victims caught up in political upheavals of historic proportions.
“While we can rebuild complex infrastructure spanning from nuclear energy to bullet trains, telecom towers and fiber optic cable to waste and water treatment facilities, schools and hospitals, and we can even land a man or woman on the moon, we cannot ever restore life, where life has been taken away,” says Ron Nechemia.
NEVER AGAIN
Whether in Bosnia, Rwanda, Xinjiang, Bucha, Kharkiv, or Mariupol, “Never Again” is a recurring theme.
On this annual commemorative day, the Global Bank Group urges all member states of the United Nations to remember the six million Jewish Holocaust victims and millions of other victims of Nazism and develop educational programmes to help prevent future genocides.
Global Bank Group will continue to raise these issues and call for change, to stand up for peace, security, and human dignity.
Our organisational purpose, and values, are in the Global Bank Charter. The central role of the Global Bank Group is embracing the Bank Group’s ideals and values enshrined in the Global Bank Charter; respect for fundamental human rights of men and women, social justice and human dignity, peace and security, the worth of the human person, self-determination of peoples, social progress and development, and leave no one behind.
