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Symposium marks 70th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz

Panelists at Tokyo event stress need to remember the Holocaust

by Yuji Yamamoto, Staff Writer

A symposium to consider Nazi Germany’s Holocaust was held at the United Nations University in Tokyo on January 27. Sponsored by the Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Center, the event was scheduled to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Fumiko Ishioka, director of the center, and two other panelists talked on the subject of “The Meaning of Learning about the Holocaust Today.”

The three panelists focused on the background behind the Holocaust, particularly the efforts of the Nazis to incite persecution of the Jews by ordinary citizens. “The Holocaust involved more than just problems with the Nazi state. It was also about people treating other people as outsiders,” Ms. Ishioka said. “It’s important to look at the weakness of human beings that allows them to discriminate against others.”

Kenji Takahashi, an associate professor at Tottori University who conducts research into social education, said, “Discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and race is increasing in Japan, as is evident from the hate speech we hear today. We need to take another look at the prejudices held by those who perpetrated the Holocaust.”

“It’s dangerous to think about people from the narrow perspective of stereotypes or to feign indifference,” said Makoto Otsuka, director of the Holocaust Education Center in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture. “This is a problem people must overcome.” All three panelists urged the participants to remind themselves of the need to be accepting of all kinds of people and to respect individuals.

About 60 people attended the symposium including Israel’s ambassador to Japan, teachers and college students. Before the symposium got underway, part of the French film “Shoah,” which consists of interviews with concentration camp survivors, was shown.

Keywords

Auschwitz concentration camp
The concentration camp in Auschwitz was the largest of the camps used by Nazi Germany for the Holocaust. It was established in June 1940 on the outskirts of what is now the city of Oswiecim in southern Poland. The camp initially housed Polish political prisoners, but starting in 1942 it functioned as an extermination camp, primarily for Jews. Until the camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in January 1945, more than 1 million people died there, including Roma and Soviet prisoners of war in addition to Jews who were transported there from throughout Europe. The camp was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

(Originally published on January 28, 2015)

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