
27 January 2023
Holocaust Remembrance Day – so we never forget
Friday 27 January is the international Holocaust Remembrance Day. At Luleå University of Technology, an event was held for all university campuses in Luleå, Piteå, Kiruna and Skellefteå. The program was for reflection, reflection and above all to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, and to honor those who resisted.
"Today we have gathered here to honor and remember the victims of the Holocaust. A terrible genocide and violation of human rights, which we will never forget. Now we continue to work for people's equal value, respect and tolerance and to acknowledge everyone's differences" "Jennie Hägg said, Head of Studet Affairs at Luleå University of Technology.
International Day of Remembrance
The Holocaust Remembrance Day is based on the date when the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, 1945. In English it is called Holocaust. In Hebrew it is called Shoah, which means disaster. In addition to Jews, Roma and Poles were also subjected to genocide and thousands of disabled people, homosexuals and political dissidents were persecuted and killed.
Reading aloud from a book by Hédi Fried
What do you remember from arriving at Auschwitz? It was one of the questions that Hédi Fried received over the years when she visited schools and lectured about her experiences as a survivor of the Holocaust, that question is included in her book Questions I received about the Holocaust. Gunilla Röör, Director of Norrbottensteatern, read aloud selected parts from the book, where the words help us not to forget. In the book, Hédi Fried tells about how she arrived with her family at the Auschwitz extermination camp on May 17-18, 1944. How they were taken there packed in cattle cars and how families were brutally separated in the dark night, under strong searchlights, never to meet again. On this first night, Hédi Fried ended up in front of Josef Mengele, also known as the Angel of Death in Auschwitz, who was conducting Nazi pseudoscientific, torturous experiments on people in the camp. He sent Hédi Fried's mother to the right, to be executed that evening. Hédi Fried herself and her sister were ordered to the left by Mengele. They survived, by coincidence, and on a minimum of food: "The calories were enough not to die, but were too little to survive". Gunilla Röör read from the book about how Hédi Fried hoped after her time in camp that life would somehow be the same again, but it never was. She later became a psychologist and alongside work during her life, she testified about his experiences in concentration camp and worked against racism. Nowadays, we get to share her important stories via her books.
The importance of dialogue
Stefan Olofsson from the university church spoke about respect and religion and the importance of a dialogue so that mechanisms like those that started the holocaust do not become strong again. Music students Elias Sarkkinen and Lovisa Holten played beautiful music and the event ended with the lighting of seven candles, symbolizing the Jewish seven-armed candlestick Menorah.
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