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ITF Chair Ambassador Karel de Beer's Blog: New Post

15.12.2011

Ambassador Karel de Beer, ITF Chair, writes a blog to share the work and activities of the Chairmanship.  To read his newest post, please click below.

 

15 December 2011

Lithuania

To get in the right spirit for the Plenary I travelled to Vilnius to attend a book presentation of Professor Robert van Voren.  The book Undigested Past; The Holocaust in Lithuania is a must-read to everyone who is interested in this history of  Lithuania .

I had the opportunity to meet with Minister Arūnas Gelūnas in preparation for the book presentation and  he impressed me with a clear vision on both the history and the future of Lithuania.

I also had a chance to discuss the upcoming Plenary with the Lithuanian Head of Delegation, Mrs. Asta Skaisgiryte Liauskiene, vice minister of Foreign Affairs.

 

ITF's Plenary Session

The week of November 27 until December 1 was the most exhausting week of the year, but it appeared to be the most rewarding week also. This week was the second ITF conference in 2011. It all started off with the conference "The Holocaust and other Genocides; the Uses, Abuses and Misuses of the Holocaust Paradigm" at the Peace Palace in The Hague on November 27 and 28. This conference was not an ITF conference, but organised on the occasion of the Netherlands' Chairmanship of the ITF by the Dutch ITF Working Group delegates. In my opening speech I stressed that the theme of this conference is timely and that its relevance cannot be underestimated easily. The Holocaust and other genocides is - understandably - a thorny issue to many. I firmly believe that we should not evade from an open debate on this issue. It is a necessity to discuss the Holocaust in relation to other genocides in research, education and remembrance. The mandate of the ITF, however, is clear: we deal with the memory of the Shoah. But the Stockholm Declaration also points out that we have a responsibility to fight genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, antisemitism and xenophobia. I think we should stick to our mandate, but that does not mean that we should "isolate" the Holocaust from other genocides. To me the conference met my expectations; there were excellent presentations - sometimes provocative - and lively debates.

To a Chair an ITF conference is like a surging vortex. Despite the careful preparation and hard work of the conference organizers and the ITF Secretariat I was confronted with a whole range of unexpected developments that required some negotiations behind the scenes, consultations with Working Group Chairs and ad hoc decision making. Seeing all the people who became friends over the last year, meeting new people and saying goodbye to some, makes the ITF-meeting very intense.

As I have said on different occasions also in this blog, the strength of ITF is in its people, in individuals, who can make a difference.

I had to say goodbye to some of them during this session: Aviva Raz-Shechter , Guy Broc and Steve Feinberg are fine examples of people who served the ITF for many years

The ITF team of the Netherlands had spent considerable time preparing a good theme for the opening session: Old and New: how do you keep the ITF and its issues relevant?

The session was opened by the Netherlands'  State Secretary of Health, Welfare and Sport, Mrs. Marlies Veldhuijzen van Zanten-Hyllner, and Leslie Baruch Brent and Micha Gelber, two Holocuast survivors. To underline the relevance of the ITF in linking generations we had asked two youngsters to tape a video impression of their visit to Auschwitz and Sobibor.

If I listened to what people said to me afterwards I conclude that we succeeded in getting the message across through the contributions of two survivors and two young people

Although I will be in office for another 3 months, the Plenary could be seen as the culmination of the Netherlands' Chairmanship of the ITF.  The work of the last year should lead to a number of decisions by the Plenary that - in my view - are important for the future of the ITF. The idea behind all this was and is that the ITF remains relevant and "fit for purpose," as I said in my White Paper. We have to see whether this will indeed materialize, but the conditions have been created.

I am grateful to all Heads of Delegation, but also to the Working Group Chairs and all the other delegates that we were able to take some important steps. We agreed to the introduction of the Multi-Year Work Plan including its main priorities. After a number years of hard work by the Communication Working Group and many debates in the Plenary the ITF decided to change its name into the International Holocaust Remembrance Organisation (IHRO) as of March 6, 2012. On that date a new logo, designed by renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, will be presented.  Additionally, we agreed upon the introduction of a Country Reporting System to monitor the progress made by countries in implementing the Stockholm Declaration.  Last but not least, I should mention that we welcomed three new member countries Ireland, Serbia and Slovenia.

Looking back, I believe that the Plenary in The Hague was a busy, albeit fruitful event.

The leisure time was rather limited.  I hope that the visit to the Tribunal and the visit on the second night to the Portuguese synagogue with the exposé of Rabbi Soetendorp were good choices, and of course I would have wished that we had more time to show delegates more of what the Netherlands has to offer.

 

The Vatican

Strengthening relations with the Holy See and access to the Vatican archives for scientific research have been ITF priorities for many years. Together with Advisor to the ITF, Professor Steven Katz, I travelled to Rome for a meeting at the Vatican. I briefed my counterparts of the Holy See on the recent development in the ITF in general; and the decisions taken at the Plenary in particular.

I stressed that my visits to all member countries have reinforced my views of the importance of the involvement of the church in Holocaust remembrance and education.

Mgr. Balesteros, Undersecretary for Relations with States, informed me that an earlier visit in 2009 on the opening of the secret archives had given an extra push forward within the Vatican. I will write a report to the incoming Belgian Chairmanship, however a closer involvement of the Catholic Church with the work of the ITF might take some more time.