Federal Department of Economics, Education and Research
Bern, 01.27.2021 – Message from the President of the Confederation Guy Parmelin on the occasion of the International Day dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust
Exactly one year ago, dozens of Heads of State and Government, including the President of the Confederation, and Holocaust survivors, including three of our compatriots, solemnly commemorated on the Auschwitz-Birkenau site the 75th anniversary of the liberation of this Nazi extermination camp. Together, they pledged to perpetuate the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, non-Jewish victims of the Third Reich, such as the Roma, Sinti and Yenish, as well as the memory of other crimes committed by the Germany and its allies.
Similar ceremonies should have taken place at the sites of other extermination and concentration camps. They were to remind in particular that the Holocaust is not limited to Auschwitz, nor even to the camps. Due to the current pandemic, however, these commemorations had to be canceled.
The current health crisis should not, however, make us forget what our society establishes harmony and cohesion: the spirit of openness, the sense of dialogue and the expression of respect. Undoubtedly it is necessary to put an even more marked emphasis on this state of mind when the company is in the grip of difficulties, brought as a result to withdrawal into itself, to exclusion, to the ill-advised and lame idea that these same difficulties are attributable to others.
Any period of instability favors extremist overtones and unhealthy impulses. A glance at international news is enough to be convinced. This psychological mechanism must be denounced and the temptation of violence at all costs avoided. Today as yesterday, we therefore strongly condemn all forms of anti-Semitism, discrimination and racism.
Since 1945, other genocides have taken place and it is important today to take concrete action to prevent new ones. Switzerland was a pioneer in this field by creating a few years ago the Global Action against Mass Atrocity Crimes, a network bringing together representatives of States, experts and representatives of civil society from all continents to develop prevention instruments.
“The horror of the Holocaust does not lie in the fact that it represents a deviation from human standards, but in the fact that it is not,” wrote the Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer. What happened can happen again, certainly not in exactly the same way, not by the Germans against the Jews, but by anyone against anyone. “We are all victims, performers, possible spectators. “
Let us remember the victims and work concretely to prevent any new ones!
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Federal Department of Economics, Education and Research
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