We Have No Right To Forget

Teacher Andras Zita – Emese Secondary School Teliu, Brașov

The principles of a society are internalized at the level of the individual through values. Values are passed down from generation to generation. The natural question is: What values do we transmit? Let's not transmit "values" that promote the wrong ways and means to win, let's not teach young people hatred, chauvinism, but let's teach them respect for life. Let's teach them to have empathy. Empathy helps you not to be afraid of other people, even if they speak another language, have different habits, dress differently. Empathy helps you understand that each person has a lot in common with you, that we all have families, we love them, we are afraid of certain things, and that in fact “we are genetically programmed to care for each other, to help each other. But it's up to you to take the first step!”81 The role in the behavior of a child is played by the parents, the school cannot make up for the absence of a solid education. The University of Minnesota study considers that not only the low level of empathy, but the lack or weak control over impulses and emotions, so the education received, internalized values lead or not to cruelty as happened in World War II. The "values" promoted by Hitlerjugend through Nazi propaganda led to the disaster of killing 6 million Jews. Activities in Nazi schools were based on physical and ideological training; it included, among other things, racist indoctrination, learning to differentiate the human races, and so on. Young people were inflamed by wrong ideas, the information received was distorted and the lack of cultural contact formed some wrong ideas in their souls and minds. After the Second World War, mankind realized the need for legislation to ensure respect for human rights, thus was born the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted on December 10, 1948, during the third session of the UN General Assembly. Later, the European Court of Human Rights or as it is known, the ECHR, is established in Europe. It is the guarantor of compliance with the regulations set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols. The "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" is a document prepared by the Council of Europe, which includes fundamental rights and freedoms, and was signed on November 4, 1950 in Rome. Most of the rights contained in the convention are civil and political rights. It entered into force on 3 September 1953. “The Convention has been ratified by almost all the member states of the Council of Europe, it is one of the newest constructions of the international institutional system. The Convention and its Additional Protocols protect several

81 https://adrianvintu.net/2016/08/05/ce-este-empatia-si-de-ce-este-esentiala-pentru-o-viata-bogata/

fundamental rights and freedoms held by individuals, individuals, or various social entities, with the exception of any state structure."82 The Holocaust during the Second World War clearly shows the need for this type of law to regulate the laws of all states because: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”83 Interestingly, we have so many laws governing human rights, and yet we have had various situations where these laws have not been respected. An example is the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Or "the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica."84 Do we live in a world that cannot learn from its own mistakes or a world in which we must constantly ensure respect for human rights through the education of young people, the formation of a solid political culture of the electorate? I believe that the laws must be respected, that we as a society must strive for an adequate cultural and political education, so that the above-mentioned situations will not be repeated. For this reason it is important to talk about the Holocaust, about the atrocities committed in the concentration camps at Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, Auschwitz, Birkenau. "They served as 'death factories' in which the German SS and German police killed nearly 2,700,000 Jews by asphyxiating them with poison gas, shooting and extreme hunger work."85 We have known for a long time that history, and especially the history that shapes the historical consciousness of society, is not written exclusively and, in fact, by specialist historians. Maintaining, reproducing and, in some cases, transforming memory, especially the common memory of the nation, is a matter of political culture that is usually under state control. Whenever an idea is repeated, an event is talked about, it becomes a part of collective memory. I think that the testimonies of the survivors in the camps must be repeated, so that it is no longer necessary for a former Nazi to confirm the Holocaust because some tended to believe that it did not happen. An eloquent example is the case of the former Auschwitz accountant, Groning, who felt the need to tell the world about the Holocaust, a world he thought was unreal. At the age of 93, he was tried and convicted for self-denunciation. The Holocaust means the Nazi regime's killing of six million Jews. We We tend to believe that the election of Hitler, on January 30, the chancellor of Germany, is the trigger for the Nuremberg Laws adopted on September 15, 1935: the law of Reich citizenship and the law for the protection of German blood and honor”86. The lack of civic education, the lack of a political culture led to the mass pursuit of the ideas promoted by Hitler. After the stock market crash in 1929 on Wall Street led to the collapse of the economy in many European countries, Germany was not in a better situation either. The idea of the "living space" (German: Lebensraum) for the "new man", the annexation of some provinces, was born, but in all these political and military actions the European powers did nothing out of the desire to maintain peace.

82 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conven%C8%9Bia_European%C4%83_a_Drepturilor_Omului 83 https://www.ohchr.org/en/udhr/documents/udhr_translations/rum.pdf 84 https://www.dw.com/ro/mo%C5%9Ftenirea-grea-a-r%C4%83zboiului-s%C3%A2rbo-croat/a-18230006 85 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_lag%C4%83relor_de_concentrare_naziste 86 https://ro.eferrit.com/legile-din-nuremberg-din-1935/

However, the first nationalist regime in Europe was Mussolini's regime, called "Il Duce". Mussolini's ideas "Fight, work, listen!" Became the motto for all people of the Nazi regimes. This formed a citizen subordinated to the regime, who did not have, could not claim the right to a private life. "In 1938 two racial decrees appeared. "The persecution of Jews in Italy took place in two distinct stages. The first lasted from September 1938 to July 25, 1943 and was characterized by anti-Jewish legislation: Jewish teachers and students were banned from schools, Jews were fired from the army and civil service, their property rights were restricted, they Jews who had moved to Italy in the last twenty years were expelled, newcomers were not allowed to enter the country, and mixed marriages were banned."87 "The worst anti-Semitic atrocities have taken place since the spring of 1941 in Benghazi when a Jewish resident was killed, later in Tripoli and then in May 1942 in Spalato, the Jews were abused in the synagogue.88”89 According to the study carried out by Michaele Scharfati, it appears that no official Nazi documents were found that included Italy in the "final solution". A single act of 23 September 1942 (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Circular issued by the RSHA) under the control of the Third Reich German police chiefs in these areas (except the Italian ones) were informed that Jews of Italian nationality could be "immediately deported" to Eastern Europe."90 In 1943, the Foreign Minister of Romania submitted an act to the Italian Embassy in Romania requesting the observance of the rights of Jews of Romanian citizenship according to the SARFATTI, MichaeleGliebrei nell'Italia fascista research. Vicende, identità, persecuzione specifying that Romania treats all people in the same way regardless of whether they are Aryans or not, which he also requested from the Italian Government ”Franco Trandafilo, Italian Ambassador to Romania, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Socialist Republic, December 18, 1943 : "... between Aryan Romanians and Semitic Romanians"; „… Use the braiding address'; ASMAE, MAE, RSI-Cabinet, pp. 164, fasc. IV-1”91 Signs of the catastrophe have been seen since 1933 when Germany left the Geneva Peace Conference and the League of Nations. The next steps came as rational elements when it comes to history, but the politicians of that time chose not to get involved. Germany annexed the Saarland to Germany in a referendum in 1935, and in 1936 the RhinelandPalatinate area, established as a demilitarized zone, was annexed to Germany. This is the time when the great powers of Europe do not move, although Germany acts in violation of the Peace Treaty, Hitler said: "everything is possible, if allowed." European states have agreed to invade and annex Germany. It took the Germans and their collaborators four and a half years to kill six million Jews. "It simply came to our notice then. The criminals were not only happy with the destruction of the communities, they targeted every Jew who was hiding and hunted every fugitive. The sin of being a Jew was so great that every one of them had to die — the man, the woman, the child, the responsible, the selfless, the renegade, the healthy and the creative, the sick, and the lazy — all had

87 http://www.hdke.hu/files/csatolmanyok/06_MicheleSarfart_Azsidok_deportalasa_Olaszorszagban.pdf 88 Michele SARFATTI, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione, Torino, Einaudi, 2000, 201, 202 89 Michele SARFATTI, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione, Torino, Einaudi, 2000,p.101 90 http://www.hdke.hu/files/csatolmanyok/06_MicheleSarfart_Azsidok_deportalasa_Olaszorszagban.pdf 91 Michele SARFATTI, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione, Torino, Einaudi, 2000,p.105

to suffer and die. without any step, without hope, without any possible salvation, without any chance of relief ”92(Yad Vashem). Human rights have been violated, Germany has tried to completely exterminate the Jewish population in annexed or occupied countries. The Wansea Conference (Berlin), on January 20, 1942, opens the long road of torment of Jews, blacks, homosexuals, the mentally ill. This plan was conceived by Adolf Eichmann, who had no higher education, and this made him especially eager to stand out in front of Hitler. The extermination of the Jews was called ENDLÖSUNG by the Nazis, meaning the final solution. More than half of Europe's 11 million Jews, about 6 million people, were killed during the war. Most of the victims died in the so-called concentration camps. There were death camps in which the victims were executed en masse by various methods. The two largest death camps operated near Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. The killing was done with Zyklon-B gas, these crystals turned into a killer gas. Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach talks about pain, about knowledge about commemoration. Knowledge is the only way we can avoid repeating the mistakes that led to the extermination of 6 million Jews and thousands and thousands of gypsies, sick people or simply people who supported the values of a civilized society, opposing totalitarian regimes and so on. becoming exterminated. The memorial in the courtyard of the

synagogue on Dohany utca Street, Budapest talks about the memory of those exterminated during the Holocaust. On each leaf is written the name of a Jew killed by the barbaric laws of the Nazi period. When the wind moves the metal leaves, a "song" is heard. "Remember! Remember! ”it is sung to us by all those who have suffered, died, but also by children who could not be born, or died before a Frédéric François Chopin, Archimedes of Syracuse or other illustrious scientists or culture. If they lived, maybe today we would fly to other planets, talk to aliens, understand the secret of the sculptures on Easter Island, etc. We must understand that the loss of these people is not only a loss for the Jews, but also for humanity. The metal monument "Shoes on the Danube" in Budapest speaks of an unprecedented atrocity during the

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deportation of Jews. The plan was led by Adolf Eichmann himself, who lived in Budapest at the time. When you see the monument, you begin to hear the story of each man killed just because he was different in culture, religion, and so on. I would like to conclude with Arthur Henderson's words: “Whatever we do or fail to do will influence history. We have no right to forget!”

Bibliography Duroselle, Jean-Baptist-History of International Relations, Social and Political Sciences Publishing House, Bucharest, 2006. ECHR decisions for Romania - Best publishing house, Bucharest, 2009. Conf. Dr. Univ. Cătană, Luciana –Emilia-European Union Law- Course- Faculty of Law, Târgu Mureș, 2018.

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