Dr. Samuel Pisar Named UNESCO Honorary Ambassador and Special Envoy for Holocaust Education

Dr. Samuel Pisar, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor and acclaimed international lawyer, author, and human rights activist, has been designated a UNESCO Honorary Ambassador and Special Envoy for Holocaust Education.

The ceremony took place at UNESCO's Headquarters on the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust, Friday, 27 January 2012.  It was hosted by Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO.

"Kaddish", an oratorio written and narrated by Samuel Pisar, to Leonard Bernstein's 3rd Symphony, was screened during the event.  Afterwards, Mr. Pisar accompanied the Director-General to the Shoah Memorial, where they laid a wreath in remembrance of the victims.

Apart from Mr. Pisar's professional activities at the American, French and British bars, he is a board member of various public interest organizations, a trustee of Washington's Brookings Institution, honorary president of Yad Vashem France and a member of the board of directors of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and of Israel's Institute of Technology.

In his new role, Mr. Pisar will reflect on his commitment to the idea that "the Holocaust, attacked by incendiary demagogues as a 'myth,' is an all too real warning for mankind of possible horrors yet to come.  For it has revealed, as have more recent genocides and ethnic cleansings, that humans are still capable of the worst as well as of the best, of hatred as well as of love, of madness as well as of genius, and that the unthinkable remains possible. Unless we espouse, through remembrance and education, the core universal values embedded in all great creeds - spiritual and secular - the forces of darkness may return with a vengeance to haunt us again."