Last update - 00:00 04/05/2007
Shalem: Holocaust groups can do more to end Darfur genocide
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent
The organizations engaged in the commemoration of the Holocaust can do a lot more within the framework of the struggle to stop the genocide in Darfur, says Motti Shalem, who until recently was the director of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.
In an interview with Haaretz, Shalem said that organizations such as Yad Vashem are reluctant to associate the Jewish Holocaust with other genocides around the world for fear of infringing on its singularity and uniqueness. This, according to Shalem, includes the ongoing genocide in Darfur, western Sudan.
Yad Vashem has, however, taken a stand on the Darfur genocide. Earlier this week, the leadership of the Authority contacted United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked him to act through the UN Security Council to stop the genocide in Darfur. In their letter supporting the global day of action against the conflict in Darfur, Yad Vashem Chairman Yosef Lapid and Director General Avner Shalev urged Ki-moon to take immediate international action to halt the bloodshed that has killed at least 200,000 and displaced 2.5 million people.
"As heads of the Jewish people's central organization for commemorating the Holocaust - a genocide which took place while the world was silent - we feel a special obligation ... to raise the alarm on Darfur," the letter stated.
But Shalem says Yad Vashem can do a lot more. "Up 'till now, Yad Vashem has limited itself to declarative actions. The institution can increase its involvement with the crisis in terms of educational activity and research. The subject is not taught, for instance, in the educational seminars for teachers from Israel and abroad. The seminars could definitely devote a schooling day to the subject," he complains.
The reason for this neglect, according to Shalev, is fear that dealing with other genocides might come at the expense of the teaching of the Holocaust and that it will be regarded as less of a uniquely Jewish phenomenon.
"We at Yad Vashem have always sounded the alarm and warned against cheapening the memory of the Holocaust by involving it in everyday affairs. The discussion over its uniqueness is academic, but our educational concern should be devoted to preventing the reoccurrence of such atrocities in the future," Shalem explains.
He goes on to say that recent experience has shown that the more the Holocaust is mentioned within the context of other genocides, the more interest it generates in the world. "Associating the Holocaust with the 1994 Rwanda genocide or the Darfur genocide only serves to raise awareness of it," he says.
Shalem finds a striking example for this increased awareness in the cooperation of Yad Vashem with survivors of the Rwandan genocide who sought the institution's help in commemorating their loved ones, who were butchered by extremist Hutu militia groups. The Tutsi survivors requested the institution's help in forming a commemoration authority similar to Yad Vashem.
"The perception of the Holocaust as the most extreme, total act of genocide ever perpetrated is stronger today than it ever was in the past. Take the newly founded Vietnamese museum for the commemoration of the casualties of the Vietnam War: they chose to equate the catastrophe with the Holocaust, and the Holocaust only."
Yad Vashem reacted by saying that the institution has been active in the Darfur issue since July 2004, in the form of articles and press releases. The organization added that Chairman Avner Shalev had on several occasions contacted the prime and interior ministers on behalf of refugees from Darfur who had reached Israel.