OSCE workshop shines light on need to redouble efforts to commemorate and study the Holocaust in Moldova

CHISINAU, 7 October 2016 – An OSCE-organized workshop to provide the Moldovan government with concrete guidance on strengthening the commemoration and study of the Holocaust in the country took place today in Chisinau. The event brought together 75 government officials, civil society representatives and experts to share international good practices on Holocaust remembrance and education.

The OSCE Mission to Moldova and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) organized the workshop with the support of Moldova’s Foreign Ministry and Bureau for Interethnic Relations.

“Promoting remembrance events and education is the most effective way to ensure that there will be no repetition of the Holocaust, as such efforts foster the spirit of tolerance, humanism and mutual respect,” said Michael Scanlan, Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova. “More must be done to institutionalize these efforts so that future generations in Moldova understand that the Holocaust was not just a remote event in Europe but one that touched nearly every town, village and community of this beautiful land”.

Workshop participants welcomed recent milestones reached by Moldova, which observed a Holocaust Remembrance Day for the first time in 2016, becoming the 28th OSCE participating State to do so. In July 2016, the Moldovan parliament adopted a Declaration committing the government to develop an action plan of social and educational measures for studying the Holocaust and organizing events to commemorate its victims in Moldova.

“A coherent and comprehensive approach to commemorating the Holocaust requires the active involvement of civil society, the academic community and society more broadly,” said Marina Lecarteva, Director of the Jewish Community of Moldova. “That is why the Jewish Community reiterates its call on the Moldovan government to adopt a roadmap that incorporates recommendations developed by all relevant actors over the last two years.”

Participating in the event, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) representatives reaffirmed ODIHR’s support and expertise to assist the Chisinau authorities in increasing awareness and understanding of the Holocaust in Moldova.

“A mere 50 kilometres from here, in Dubasari, thousands of people, mainly Jews but also Roma, were executed in September 1941, and right here, in Chisinau, from 1941 to 1942 there was a Jewish ghetto with very few survivors,” recalled Ambassador Scanlan. “Remembering and honouring those who were murdered is a reminder of how we all must be our brothers’ keepers, a responsibility we should never shirk.  By meeting this challenge every day, we reaffirm our own humanity.”