April 23, 2012

Wallenberg Foundation Lights a Candle on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Invited by the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation attended the Holocaust Day and Heroism Remembrance Act, on the 69th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The event took place at the Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Representing the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and its founder, Baruch Tenenbaum, Eduardo Eurnekian, chairman of this educational NGO, lit a memorial candle for the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust (1933-1945).

The event was attended by President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Ricardo Lorenzetti, who said: “The Holocaust was a process, not a single act. It was a path transited by hatred and fanatism. Thus, the perpetrators should be judged by both History and Justice. It is such fanaticism and discrimination that led to blindness, madness and tragedy. But this very past that led to the Shoah, was transited by hatred. Such hatred divides people, establishing a kind of systematic blindness. Indifference went through that same path.  The indifference of a whole people and of a whole humanity, one that led to the thought of considering that these small acts of discrimination had no importance, they had no significance because they happened to others. “It is not my case; it will not affect me or is of a sector that is alien to me.” That indifference should not have happened. ”

For its part, Israel’s Ambassador Daniel Gazit, made a heartfelt evocation of the Righteous among the Nations, with particular emphasis on the figure of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Mr. Gazit referred to the heroism shown by the Righteous and said: “It is a difficult subject to explain what heroism is and what it means today. We wonder what would have done in those circumstances when all was dark and nobody knew what to do. Deciding to risk one’s life, to fight against the current, against the crowds. Each one of us could have that courage, that heroism.

When our sages define heroism they ask: “Who is a hero?” And they answer: “He who rules his instinct, his deep desire.”