| LEGACY |
Diffuse
Her identity is diffuse,
due perhaps to the
spirit of her ancestors
diffused in the smoky wind
at Auschwitz,
at Dachau, at Treblinka.
Sometimes,
glancing at her face in the mirror,
she finds her cheeks tainted
with gloomy ashes.
Rosa Piotrkowski
(translated from the original in Spanish)
Being present, the ongoing struggle. The moving finale of the Partisan Hymn declares, “Mir zainen do” – We are here. That sentiment gives us the resolve to continue our mission. Our very existence today affirms the human capacity to survive and is a testimony to the strength of life.
The persistence of memory. Memory is a living entity, something we return to again and again and that we nourish with our reflection and actions. It isn't just that we do not forget: we connect memory with social and historical responsibility. Our memory work is constructive, an engine for our activities directed to social transformation.
The exercise and experience of memory . Far from a series of automatic and ritualized repetitions, the exercise of memory becomes fully realized in the educational realm. In working with students and schools, we aim to create a participatory and concept-driven environment that generates active dialogue and genuine reflection.
The Shoah, a Universal. Historical events are only real in the actual lives of individuals. Their voice and presence, their flesh and blood, embody concepts and theoretical abstractions in a solid and incontrovertible manner. While the Shoah is unprecedented in many respects, it is not the only horrific event to take place in the history of humanity. The idea that there is not a thing that a human being is not capable of doing to another has become irrefutable after the Shoah. As the mass murder that has been the most thoroughly documented in history, it is the subject of hundreds of research projects undertaken in different disciplines throughout the world. It has become the symbol of absolute evil, the supreme example of mass murder and genocide. The atrocities committed during the Shoah, the vast range of discriminatory tactics, arbitrariness and injustice, exemplify the collapse of respect for the most elemental human rights. The concepts and symbols of the Shoah have been used in reference to genocides in Ethiopia , Rwanda , ex-Yugoslavia, and China . The Shoah is a universal symbol of absolute evil.
LEGACIES
