TORONTO, January 27, 2007 - On this day, set aside to memorialize and honour those who perished in the Holocaust, the courage of those who survived and those who took action, at serious personal risks, to protect the persecuted, the entreaty of "Never again" becomes even more important.
Today, many of the same peoples, who were targeted and who perished in the Nazi concentration camps and whose lives were destroyed, still face hatred and discrimination. What is even more remarkable is that in some cases the hatred seems to be rising, instead of abating. We need not only to ask ourselves "why", but we urgently need to come up with answers which will form the basis for actions designed to roll back these growing tendencies.
At the end of the Second World War, just a relatively short 63 years ago, as the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps were revealed, one would have thought that the world should have been shocked out of its complacency about racism and intolerance. To some degree it was. Regrettably, we still have a lot to learn about the dangers of our complacency and inactivity.
The Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) will continue to incorporate the lessons of the Holocaust as it continues to educate against racism, hate and discrimination because, indeed, these inhumane acts of cruelty must never happen, or be allowed to happen, again.