Moroccan royal advisor calls for preserving universal memory of Holocaust

“We are gathered at the Hassan II Pavilion in Seville so that each and every one of us can reaffirm his or her commitment to preserving and prolonging, over the course of generations, the irreducible, irrefragable and universal memory of the Holocaust,” said André Azoulay, Advisor to King Mohammed VI and current President of the Foundation of the Three Cultures and the Three Religions.

Speaking on the occasion of the Ceremony of Remembrance, organized as every year by the Foundation to celebrate the International Holocaust Day, Azoulay emphasized the importance of the Holocaust in the history of humanity. Azoulay highlighted “the exceptional political, social and spiritual consensus embodied by this ceremony which brought together, in the same emotion and the same contemplation, the members of the Andalusian government, the President of the Andalusian Parliament, the leaders of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities and, for the first time, more than fifty students, sentinels, committed and attentive to ensure, over the generations, and without concession or compromise, the relay of the Memory of the Holocaust”.

Welcoming the presence and the testimony of one of the last survivors of the Holocaust, Mr. Robert Wolfberg, the Royal Advisor invited the audience to take the right measure of the words of King Mohammed VI in his historic message of March 18, 2009 to tell the Community of Nations that “his reading of the Holocaust is not that of amnesia but that of a memorial wound that we have inscribed in one of the most painful chapters in the Pantheon of Universal Heritage.”

Pronounced in the land of Islam, these words of the Commander of the Faithful, of all the Believers, echo here and today in Seville to the Lights of Andalusia of all possibilities and they tell everyone the ethical, moral and political contours to which Morocco has chosen to identify its Word’, emphasized André Azoulay.

Antonio Sanz, Minister of the Presidency of the Andalusian Autonomous Government, recalled that “the Holocaust was the result of thousands of years of hatred and discrimination against the Jews, what we call today anti-Semitism.”

“History continues to move forward, but anti-Semitism keeps coming back. We must remain vigilant,” Sanz said, adding that ”society urgently needs institutions like ours, the Three Cultures Foundation, to continue to work with determination in the areas of awareness and youth.”

“We need to strengthen social cohesion so that people feel that diversity is an asset and not a threat,” the Andalusian leader noted.

A people that forgets its history is condemned to repeat it, so practicing memory is the best way to honor all those who died victims of Nazi cruelty during the Second World War, said, on this occasion, Jesús Aguirre, President of the Andalusian Parliament.

”We all have the duty to denounce any form of violence for reasons of belief, ethnicity, ideologies or sexual condition. Let us never forget, let us not turn our backs on those who have had the strength to survive such cruel moments in history as the one suffered by the Jewish people,” added Aguirre.

“Today, we must work from education to prevent this situation from happening again in any corner of the world,” Aguirre stated further.