It is our duty as human beings and as a society to continue listening, learning and remembering the Holocaust. The genocide of the Second World War is perhaps the most abominable atrocity ever committed.
Today is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
For many years, various Faroese community organisations and our schools have worked to inform and educate us on the Holocaust, when approximately six million Jews were killed – including one and a half million children.
As a society we must stand together and wow that this incomprehensible evil must not be forgotten.
It is necessary that future generations understand the importance and strength of dominant values and thoughts and how this, even today, can lead to violations of human rights. The history of genocide and the Holocaust is, regrettably, also the history of humanity.
Genocides such as the Holocaust are not as rare as we would like to think and genocides continue to be perpetrated. Examples of such atrocities are the genocides in Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and Syria.
It is still a fact of life, that there are places and situations, where people who are different somehow, are persecuted and killed – as the Jews were in the Second World War. This is why we must stand together and continue to educate and warn against attitudes and behaviours that can lead to genocide.
An important step on this path for us in the Faroe Islands is that our parliament unanimously voted to make this day a public day of remembrance of the Holocaust and other genocides.
Bárður á Steig Nielsen
Prime Minister