UNESCO 2014 Aftermath and Legacy Body Text
The Holocaust has left an indelible mark on global society since the end of World War II in 1945. For the global community, the Holocaust and the horrors of World War II demonstrated the urgent need to codify universal human rights and values. It also presented the challenge of punishing the guilty. War crimes, from Nuremberg to the Eichmann Trial and beyond, have allowed the international community to continue the journey of reckoning that it started in 1945. In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. These documents represented a turning point in international law and demonstrated a certain commitment to the prevention of future tragedies of such massive scale. As Elizabeth Holtzman, one of 62 war crimes trial participants in the Visual History Archive, explains in her testimony, telling the stories of the past and bringing the guilty to justice are two ways of attempting to prevent crimes against humanity in the future.
The prevention of future tragedies is also a central component of global efforts to memorialize the Holocaust. Memorialization is another kind of journey. It is seen through the existence of museums, the transformation of sites of murder into sites of memory, physical and online archives, performances, film, art, and many other forms of expression and representation. In 1994, the USC Shoah Foundation began an effort to document the breadth and depth of experiences of the journey through the Holocaust, and, twenty years later, we are expanding the archive’s holdings to include victims of other genocides and crimes against humanity. The process that began 20 years ago and has already documented life stories from 58 countries will continue as part of the world’s journey of reckoning. Lajos Cséri provides a glimpse of what giving testimony means to him, and what he hopes it will mean for the world.
The task of memorializing a period of time that impacted so many millions of lives is complex. Part of honoring the victims is celebrating the living and those who helped them to survive. Yad Vashem- The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority founded a commission in 1963 that officially recognizes the extraordinary heroic actions and deeds of non-Jews who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Rescuers are conferred with the honorific status of “Righteous Among the Nations” (Hasidei umot haolam). The Visual History Archive contains 773 testimonies in 15 languages that discuss Righteous Among the Nations, and 823 testimonies in 18 languages about the recognition of aid givers in general. Betty Berz, whose testimony you see here, participated in the process of securing this honor for the Bastian family who saved her life by hiding her in Paris during the war.
Journeys through the Holocaust mean different things to different people. This exhibit opened with an overview of the sheer geographic distance covered during the Holocaust. People were displaced to the other side of the globe, to a neighboring country, to a country thousands of kilometers away. Many did not return. But some did. And those who did return rebuilt their lives, told their stories, and helped guide the world through the journey through the Holocaust that continues through today.