Coming to Terms with the Past Safeguards Human Rights for All:
The UN’s New Holocaust Outreach Programs
By Eve Epstein and Felice Gaer

At the UN, it has taken more than half a century to turn history right-side up when it comes to the Holocaust. Until 1998, top officials were routinely invoking euphemisms such as “World War Two” or “the acts of the Nazi regime” when referencing the Holocaust. Remarkably, no senior United Nations official had ever spoken publicly about the Jews as victims of the Nazi genocide. On the 50th anniversary of the Convention against Genocide former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ended the UN’s silence when he said that “the Holocaust of the Jews” must never be repeated. Annan’s exhortation was no mere ceremonial pablum. Given the UN’s political realities, it was an act of courage and moral leadership. For the first time in the UN’s history, a secretary-general linked the Second World War and Nazi atrocities to its Jewish context and spoke about the relationship of the Holocaust to the Genocide Convention and the UN’s founding mission.

Today, an impressive UN website, http://www.un.org/holocaustremembrance/ is devoted to Holocaust education and remembrance.

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