It is necessary to recover the historical memory: 1st University Forum “Educating to Remember”
In Trujillo, Peru, the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace (GEAP) along with the National University of Trujillo and the provincial municipality, held the 1st University Forum “Educating to Remember – The Holocaust, Paradigm of Genocide”.
At the Cesar Vallejo Auditorium of the university, a specialist in the area of human rights and social sciences gathered to give lectures based on the Holocaust to the public.
Esteban Ilich Zerpa, general secretary representing the rector of the National University of Trujillo, was in charge of the opening remarks of this grand event. During his speech, he said:
“Future of present generations must be aware of what happened in the history of the world for this not to happen again.”
Educate on the Holocaust
On his part, distinguished anthropologist, Alcibiades Vigo Garcia, spoke on the subject: “The Jewish Holocaust and other genocides of the XX century”. During his lecture he said:
“World War II and, most definitely, the Jewish Holocaust, were events that enacted other genocides in a global context, and in many occasions they acted as State political cases.”
Carlos Honores, a specialist in human rights, spoke on the topic of: “Human Rights, the Holocaust and other Genocides”, where he stressed that there is a need to recover the historical memory that allows us to denounce what the horror of the Holocaust meant.
“Human Rights implies good living, involves fighting for life with the ingredient of human dignity, not just as biological expression; and peace as a synonym of wellbeing and happiness”, Honores expressed.
Yeseenia Leon, representative of Human Rights from Trujillo, spoke on the “Importance of Education for the strengthening of the respect of Human Rights”.
In her lecture, she mentioned the famous quote from Nelson Mandela: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.
Leon stressed that education is a tool that can be used for good or evil and the Nazi government used it to spread an anti-Semitic message.
Traces to Remember
Soon after, the video testimony of Holocaust survivor, Hirsz Litmanowicz, was projected, who has lived in Peru since 1950.
Then, regional coordinator of the GEAP, Oscar Rodriguez, presented the project “Traces to Remember”, which aims to maintain the testimony of the Holocaust survivors alive.
During this event, the plaque of Hirsz Litmanowicz and his family was unveiled, as a way of preventing the repetition of one of the most sinister chapters in human history.
This project consists of an exhibition of a plaque in the form of the Star of David, which contains the hand prints of a survivor of the Holocaust, as well as the hand prints of one of their children and one of their grandchildren.
The plaque is accompanied by an inscription that contains a brief written description of what happened during the Holocaust, the story of the survivor.
Ismael Iglesias Leon, the general manager of the municipality, concluded the event with a few words, where he thanked the GEAP for the initiative of making these historic events relevant, which must stay in mankind’s memory.
The event concluded with a tour of the photographic exhibition that showed the barbarity of the genocide committed by the Nazi government during World War II.
