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

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.

7 November 2011

With only a few weeks to go before the Plenary meetings in The Hague we - the Secretariat and the Chairmanship - are getting quite busy with the agenda and documents, but also with the logistics. Since we will be having a rather full agenda, I am setting up telephone conferences with - hopefully - all HOD and Working Group Chairs to inform them about the discussions and documents they can expect.

I had a long-standing commitment to Canadian NGOs and the government of Canada to visit Canada on the occasion of Holocaust Education Week for presentations, meetings and panel discussions. The Netherlands Embassy in Ottawa made a very interesting programme which allowed me to meet Canadian stakeholders about the ITF and the Canadian Chairmanship in 2013.

But on my way there I went to the UN in New York to speak about cooperation with other international organizations that are working in the field of Holocaust remembrance.  At the UN headquarters in New York I spoke to Mr. Ed Luck, special adviser on the Responsibility to Protect. While Mr. Luck's mandate does not cover the Holocaust directly, we spent some time informing each other about the respective activities and concluded that particularly on the education side there are definitely possibilities for cooperation. Together with Mr. Francis Deng, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr. Luck implements training projects on genocide prevention in many countries.

With Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General of the UN, and Kimberley Mann of the UN Holocaust Remembrance Unit (and ITF delegate) I discussed closer cooperation between the UN and the ITF. Over the last few years we have worked closely together on a number of concrete projects and I consider this as a good example of how international organizations can make use of each other and how they should work together. The ITF has the expertise on Holocaust education, remembrance and research, and the UN has a network of many offices with a mandate in communication and public information. USG Akasaka and I reiterated that we should continue working together and he invited me to participate in New York in January 27, 2012 on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

As a former Netherlands' Ambassador to Canada, I'm quite familiar with the Canadian Government, NGOs and Canadian culture. I was looking forward to meet old friends and to discuss the ITF with Canadian stakeholders.

The whole programme included students, schoolchildren, the Military College, lawyers, and the general public.  As I experienced in the last year there is great interest in the broad spectrum of issues related to the Holocaust: from antisemitism to questions on how we can keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and relevant with the last of the survivors slowly passing away.

The discussion with professors and students of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University on the relevance of Holocaust Education in countries that are seeking more democracy today was as lively as the title suggests: a very knowledgeable audience but not everybody was aware of what the ITF is and does.

Together with Mark Weitzman I participated in a panel discussion on the threat of Holocaust denial and antisemitism organized by the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre. Mark gave an impressive overview of denial and antisemitism on the Internet and I presented the ITF in general and its activities to counter Holocaust denial and antisemitism in particular.

My discussions in Ottawa with the Government and the upcoming chairmanship of Canada also included a preview of the discussions in the next Plenary. I received commitment on the introduction of the proposed Multi-Year Work Plan.

After a meeting with the children (10-14 years) of the Chabad Sunday School, where I got - as expected - surprising questions, I participated in a panel discussion at the Canadian War Museum on the future of Holocaust remembrance with Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Minister of Justice, human rights expert, and MP, Deirdre Butler, a professor specialized in Holocaust education, and Ada Wynston, a Dutch Holocaust survivor. After the introductions the panel was overwhelmed with questions, both on questions releated to education in Canada and general concerns on Holocaust and its relevance today.

As many already know, one of my priorities is to look for possibilities to bring Holocaust education to specific target groups such as professionals, civil servants, journalists, police officers and the military. On my way from Ottawa to Toronto I visited the Royal Military College in Kingston to present the ITF and the importance of Holocaust education and remembrance to military cadets. Canada is very much involved in matters like Responsibility to Protect and has been active in preventing and stopping genocides in many parts of the world ( Roméo Dallaire's books on his experience in Rwanda is very well know in Canada). I concentrated on the importance and relevance of learning about the facts and context of the Holocaust in order to prevent today's atrocities.

To finalize my tour around the Canadian education system, I talked to the 10th graders at the Toronto North Collegiate Institute. One of the students of this high school, Max, held a moving presentation about his visit to Auschwitz and his March of the Living in remembrance of his grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor. The approximately 300 10th graders will be doing a course in Canadian history, World War II and the Holocaust shortly. I am convinced that Max and I have managed to prepare them for the importance of Holocaust education and remembrance.

The Holocaust education week in Toronto is a major event and is a best practice for many ITF member countries.  If you ever need inspiration on how to organize such a week of events take a look at the programme and download it here: http://www.holocaustcentre.com/Programs/Holocaust-Education-Week-2011.

The kickoff event was attended by 1000 people, including Guy Broc (ITF Head of Delegation of France) and Colin Boyd (ITF Head of Delegation of Canada). On behalf of the ITF I delivered official greetings to the 2011 Holocaust Education Week.  The keynote speaker at this event was Deborah E. Lipstadt, who gave an excellent lecture about the Eichmann trial.

Last but not least I attended the fall meeting of the Canadian National Holocaust Task Force. The National Task Force provides input to the Canadian ITF delegation and seems an excellent platform to implement the Stockholm Declaration in Canada. It was a great opportunity to inform the members about my activities as ITF Chair and the agenda of the Plenary.

Back in The Netherlands I will concentrate on the preparations for the upcoming meetings and will meet ambassadors of ITF countries this week to brief them on the Plenary.