FOR NEVER FORGET – EVOCATION OF HOLOCAUST VICTIMS
In a world with an uncertain present and future and with a tortuous, complex and questionable past, all projects, activities and events that help to remember the mistakes of human action are never in excess. A good example of this tortuous past was the Holocaust, a black stain that will never be possible to remove from the history of Humanity.
Maria Bernardete e Pais
In this sense, between January 24th and March 26th, an activity alluding to the Holocaust and its victims called “For Never Forget – Evocation of Holocaust Victims” was on display at the Municipal Library of Valongo (Portugal). This activity is based on the Project “Nunca Esquecer — National Program for the Memory of the Holocaust”, promoted by the Portuguese government.
This activity created and elaborated by the Municipal Library of Valongo was composed of several items:
• Chronological frieze (time line) representing the main dates/events related to the coming to power of Adolf Hitler, installation of the Nazi regime in Germany, occupation of other countries, racist and discriminatory acts against Jews and other peoples.
• Bibliographic exhibition with about 115 books by authors censored by this regime that are part of the bibliographic collection of the Municipal Library of Valongo. For a few months, the Municipal Library of Valongo collected the names of censored authors who were part of the “List of Harmful and Undesirable Literature”. This collection focused on the research of the "Magazine" published in Berlin, in October 1935 and 1941, by the Adolf Hitler regime and which
includes the entry of 6000 references of authors, works, reports and periodicals considered harmful to the ideals defended by the Nazi regime.
This journal is part of the library repository of the Federal University of Münster.
• Three role-ups where some of the most prominent terms of the Holocaust are explained, such as the Ghettos, the Nuremberg Laws, the Final Solution, the Concentration Camps and their typology, and the Death Marches.
• Multimedia concert entitled “The Violin of Auschwitz”, performed by the musician Maurizio Padovan.
In parallel to this, 19 panels of “SHOAH – How was it Humanly Possible?” were exposed. provided
by Yad Vashem - World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. These panels present
some of the main historical aspects of the Holocaust, starting with Jewish life in pre-Holocaust
Europe and ending with the liberation of Nazi concentration and extermination camps and the
restart of life after this atrocity.
Created to remember what the Holocaust was like for older generations and show it to younger
generations, this activity had many visits from schools in the county, as it is a theme that is part
of the programmatic curriculum, providing an opportunity for young people to have a kind of
classes very different than usual.
At a time when we are once again experiencing the scourge of war, not least because
geographically it is covering a large part of the European territory where the Holocaust and the
Second World War were most felt, the young people who had the opportunity to visit theexhibitions showed that the Holocaust really is something incredulous, surreal, indescribable
before which one cannot answer the question “How was it Humanly Possible?” (Yad Vashem).