To Vanquish Chasms

Yesterday, the former Auschwitz- Birkenau concentration camp was visited by Muslims from Morocco, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. They were led by the mayor of Paris and joined by political leaders from around the world, and dignitaries such as Asha-Rose Migiro, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and UNESCO General Director Irina Bokova, to commemorate the camp's liberation in 1945.
The visit was part of the Aladdin Project, intended to curb denial of the Holocaust and help to spread information about it through the Muslim world. The French-based Aladdin Project came into being in March 2009 at UNESCO's Paris headquarters. It "has since been supported by more than 1,000 intellectuals, academics and public figures from over 50 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America. A number of world leaders and international bodies, such as the European Union, have also declared their backing for the project."
This cultural and educational program includes an Internet site, projetaladin.org, where the group describe themselves as being of the belief "that the power of knowledge and education and the primacy of history and moral values can vanquish the chasms created by ignorance, prejudice, hate and competing memories." Among other things, they state their aim as wanting to facilitate mutual knowledge through such services as providing Arabic and Farsi speakers with an accurate account of the concentration camps' history by offering online Arabic and Farsi translations of books such as Anne Frank's diary.
Denials of the Holocaust began with the Nazis themselves. Often described as the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany, Heinrich Himmler was the key and senior Nazi official responsible for overseeing the implementation of the so-called Final Solution, the Nazi plan to murder Europe's Jews. When it became obvious to Himmler that the war would not be won by Germany, he began instructing his camp commandants to destroy every sign of the mass murders they had conducted. He was especially concerned with any Jews who might still be alive because he knew they could testify about the camps, and so in April, 1945, he signed an official order that no prisoner "fall into the hands of the enemies alive." This extant order, in Himmler's own handwriting, bears testimony to the first attempts to claim the Holocaust never took place. The efforts have continued to this day, but the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. More than one vet of WWII has gone on record to detail their horror at what they encountered when they liberated various of the death camps. Many of these battle-hardened men were brought to tears by the scenes before them. There is no doubt that the Shoah is fact. There is only doubt that the truth about it will be allowed to reach those who need to know. In order to vanquish the chasms created by ignorance, prejudice, and hate, every person alive needs to know. The lesson of the Holocaust applies to every "solution" predicated on ignorance and hate.
Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants said of this week's interfaith gathering at Auschwitz, “It is the proper response to the obscene statements questioning the Holocaust by Iran's President Ahmadinejad." Surely this ceremony is the proper response to anyone and everyone who denies the Holocaust, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other faith or belief system.
Steinberg went on to say, "This delegation will spread the message of mutual tolerance and understanding as the antidote to hate and disrespect." The world stands in great need of such a message.