20 July 2008

Human rights – the International Auschwitz Committee’s Europe-wide poster campaign

‘Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. ’
Eleanor Roosevelt

At 3 a.m. on 10 December 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt proclaimed the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ in her capacity as chairwoman of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

One of the decisions the world took following Auschwitz and the Holocaust was to re-establish the United Nations and to inscribe human rights once again in the minds of people around the globe. The preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes a specific reference to this recent history. The sentence begins: ‘Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind....’.

In the 60th year after the liberation of Auschwitz, on 1 November 2005, the United Nations took a further step, as a reaction to intolerance and the worldwide growth of racism and anti-Semitism: the general assembly adopted the resolution introducing International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January, the day on which Auschwitz was liberated.

Since 2006 strong cooperation has existed between the International Auschwitz Committee and the United Nations, and in 2008 it was further intensified with an exhibition by the IAK at the UN and the participation of young Volkswagen trainees at the commemoration ceremony on 27 January at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

In addition to the introduction of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, the UN has also called into being the educational programme ‘Remembrance and Beyond’ which urges all states to raise awareness about the crimes of Nazism. This is generated by the insight that the situation in the world has not improved, particularly in the case of racism and persecution: last year 42 million people were fleeing, from war, persecution and the violation of their human rights – more than ever before.

The IAC’s poster marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whilst calling to mind the many people around the world who are still waiting for their human rights to be upheld.

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