Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
COMMEMORATION OF YOM HASHOAH (HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE)
Grand Staircase, Manitoba Legislative Building
Monday, May 6, 2024, 12:00 noon
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Members of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, fellow Manitobans, today we are united in remembrance and in hope.
As Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, I am pleased to welcome all of today’s participants to the Manitoba Legislative Building for this ceremony.
This building, in the heart of Treaty One land and in the heartland of the Red River Metis, has long been a symbol of a diverse province that is home to people of many faiths, cultures, languages and ethnic backgrounds.
The story of our province, and our country, is one of people learning to see past their differences and embrace a vision of equal protection, dignity and rights for all. It’s a story of learning to acknowledge our shortcomings and committing to rise above them.
In committing to a better world, we must not turn away from the very darkest episodes in our history. And so observing this day, Yom Hashoah, is an obligation both to the memory of those who experienced the Holocaust and to generations not yet born.
When the first Holocaust Remembrance Day was held in 1949, the world was still just beginning to grasp the enormity of the mass murder of European Jews. In the decades to come, generations in Canada and elsewhere grew up learning about this systematic campaign of murder and the hateful antisemitism from which it emerged.
At one time, perhaps, many of us might have thought these educational efforts were nearly a mission accomplished.
A few decades ago, we could not have dreamed that Holocaust denial would re-emerge on the internet — along with a metastasized high-tech form of the medieval blood libel.
And so today, as Jewish community centres and neighbourhoods find themselves in the crosshairs of protests and Jewish students feel uneasy on many university campuses, we are gathered to remember and to remind the world of the ultimate destination of antisemitism.
In remembrance we re-commit to the phrase that, sadly, remains as timely today as it was during that first Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today, as in the past, we tell the world “never again.”
Thank you for your determination to remember and to speak out.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich. Shalom
