[ The following articles/letter  written by  representatives of Canadian Jewish Congress are being reprinted below]

Holocaust changed how we see the world

By Eric Vernon

[ Letter published in the Ottawa Citizen, January 4, 2011]

Lubomyr Luciuk continues to attack the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) for its entirely appropriate decision to feature a Holocaust exhibit.

This is not a zero sum game where a Holocaust gallery diminishes the horror of the Holodomor. Rather, it is a recognition that no other genocide has had the profound and widespread impact on the consciousness of the world in general and on Canada specifically.

Indeed, scholarship on the Holocaust has led to the wider academic field of genocide studies, including the Holodomor, precisely because the Holocaust represents a watershed in human history, a period of horror that redefined the limits of the depravity of human nature, challenged the foundations of our civilization and expanded humanity’s consciousness of evil.

The CMHR understood the direct and incontrovertible link between the Holocaust and the modern culture of human rights. From the ashes of the Holocaust emerged the foundation for contemporary human rights law and structures, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on Genocide and the United Nations, itself. The line from the post-Holocaust international human-rights agreements and treaties flows directly to the notion of enforceable human rights in Canada. This, in turn, has spurred the evolution of a positive domestic culture and record of human rights aimed, inter alia, at the promotion of equality, the elimination of racism and discrimination and the protection of minority rights. Those rights are rooted in our federal and provincial Human Rights Codes, civil and criminal anti-hate legislation, a body of relevant jurisprudence, inter-cultural initiatives and, ultimately, in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Lubomyr Luciuk may not get it, but the Holocaust changed the way we look at the world. Thankfully, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights understands this and we will be better served for it at what promises to be a remarkable institution.

- Eric Vernon, Director of Government Relations and International Affairs Canadian Jewish Congress

Canadian Museum for Human Rights is Quite Canadian

[first published in  Kingston Whig-Standard on December 22, 2010]

With his op-ed in these pages on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), Lubomyr Luciuk has burnished his credentials as a one-man wrecking crew of Ukrainian-Jewish relations in Canada. It’s not just the unsavoury tone of his bitter polemic that’s disturbing; we’ve heard that record from him before. More problematic is that the central thesis of his piece is just plain wrong: a permanent exhibit on the Holocaust in the CMHR is not “un-Canadian,” as he suggests, but entirely consistent with the evolution of the world’s understanding of the concept of genocide both internationally and in Canada. In a word, the CMHR without a permanent Holocaust exhibit makes no sense.

Luciuk begins his piece by attacking the putative role of the late Izzy Asper and his family in the establishment of the CMHR in Winnipeg. To hear Luciuk tell it, a Jewish community conspiracy mesmerized the federal government into allocating funds for the museum. The problem is, Luciuk provides not one iota of evidence to support his contention that Prime Minister Harper and his government succumbed to Jewish pressure and implied Canwest quid pro quos for a Holocaust gallery.

Julian Assange would have leaked the smoking-gun confidential Cabinet memo revealing this nefarious back-scrubbing in all its glory. Trouble is, nothing of the sort exists in this case because it never happened. Luciuk should get over his conspiracy theories and remember that the CMHR’s Content Advisory Committee undertook an extensive, cross-country consultation process at which all interested parties could make their case for inclusion.

The fact is, there is no room in Canada for comparing community tragedies and creating a hierarchy of human rights suffering. That is not what is happening here. No one is arguing that the Holocaust deserves appropriate recognition because the genocide of the Jews was unique. But the argument that the Holocaust deserves no special recognition, as it is simply one genocide among many, is counter-factual. The museum got it exactly right with the establishment of a permanent Holocaust exhibit because no other genocide has had the profound and widespread impact on the consciousness of world in general and on Canada specifically. The Holocaust represents a watershed in human history, a period of horror that redefined the limits of the depravity of human nature, challenged the foundations of our civilization and expanded humanity’s consciousness of evil.

The Holocaust was unprecedented in the scope and nature of its murderous agenda and thrust the concept of genocide and collective rights onto the consciousness of the world. The Holocaust was not the first genocide in human history, and sadly not the last, but it serves as the definition of the utter negation of human rights. It was a slaughter organized on bureaucratic principles and executed on an industrial scale with the ultimate aim of genetic extinction (witness the Nazis’ mass murder of 1.5 million Jewish children.)

The CMHR understood the direct and incontrovertible link between the Holocaust and the modern culture of human rights. From the ashes of the Holocaust emerged the foundation for contemporary human rights law and structures, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on Genocide and the United Nations, itself.

From this foundation grew the culture of human rights advocacy, monitoring and compliance mechanisms, both under the aegis of multilateral bodies and non-governmental organizations, which we recognize today.

The permanent Holocaust exhibit of the CMHR will further serve a showcase for a Canadian perspective on the Shoah (Hebrew for the Holocaust).

The line from the post-Holocaust international human rights agreements and treaties flows directly to the notion of enforceable human rights in Canada. This, in turn, has spurred the evolution of a positive domestic culture and record of human rights aimed, inter alia, at the promotion of equality, the elimination of racism and discrimination and the protection of minority rights. Those rights are rooted in our federal and provincial Human Rights Codes, civil and criminal anti-hate legislation, a body of relevant jurisprudence, inter-cultural initiatives and, ultimately, in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Lubomyr Luciuk may not get it, but the Holocaust changed the way we look at the world. The Holocaust has had a profound effect on virtually all aspects of life and learning, including theology, philosophy, sociology, the arts, literature, and psychology. To its credit, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights understands this and the Canadian public, and all who visit what promises to be a remarkable institution, will be the better for it.

- Eric Vernon is the Director of Government Relations and International Affairs for Canadian Jewish Congress.

Comparing Genocides: A Losing Proposition
by Wendy Lampert

[ first  published  December 28, 2010  in the Natioanl Post]

If the world held a contest about which group suffered most at the hands of its oppressors, who would win?

Sadly, there are some people who believe the answer matters. But they miss the point–that education about human rights abuses, no matter who is the victim, has the potential to help humanity avoid falling into the same trap in the future.

Into this group falls German Canadian Congress president Tony Bergmeier. He recently complained publicly because the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) will include a permanent Holocaust exhibit. His reason? According to media reports, it shouldn’t get a dedicated space “if no one else has one … the Holocaust by now has been well publicized. Everyone knows what happened there.” In other words, been there, done that. No need to think about it anymore.

The CMHR undertook an exhaustive cross-country consultation process during which all interested parties could make their case for inclusion in the museum. It then made the appropriate decision to give the Holocaust the space it rightly deserves.

Let’s be clear: no one is suggesting other genocide victims suffered less than the Jews did under the Nazis. It’s not a competition, and there are no winners. To compare tragedies is counter-productive to the purpose at hand: teaching Canadians about the dangers of hatred and the need to confront evil. But to suggest the Holocaust was just like any other genocide, undeserving of special recognition, is to ignore the reality of its impact on 20th-century society, and on Canada in particular.

The Holocaust was a turning point in human history. Unprecedented in scope, it changed how people understood the depths of evil to which human beings could sink, challenged modern civilization’s moral centre, and forced us to accept that the slippery slope to unparalleled depravity is not so easily avoided.

The Holocaust was the first time the world witnessed such a deeply calculated, bureaucratic and highly mechanized approach to state-sponsored genocide. Murder became an industry whose bottom line was the extinction of a particular group of people. It is the defining example of the complete and utter annihilation of human rights.

The Holocaust embedded the concept of genocide into the world’s collective conscience. From its ashes rose the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on Genocide–the foundation of contemporary human rights advocacy. All subsequent international human rights developments must be viewed through this lens. The CMHR understands this irrefutable link.

Equally important is the Holocaust’s impact on Canadian society. Lester B. Pearson was a key player in the creation of the United Nations, and there is a direct link between post-Holocaust international human rights initiatives and Canadian human rights structures. Equality, elimination of racism and discrimination, respect for diversity, and minority community rights protection have become enshrined in Canadian legal structures. Not surprisingly, many Canadian Holocaust survivors were among the creators of our federal and provincial human rights codes, anti-hate legislation and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Holocaust has also fostered a culture of openness and outreach among the myriad of cultural, faith and ethnic groups that are such a rich element of Canadian society, the German Canadian Congress’s views on the CMHR notwithstanding.

It is ironic that, among all Canadian communities affected by genocides, the German Canadian Congress objects to dedicated space for the Holocaust in the CMHR. One would think the burden of history would be enough to preclude such short-sighted thinking on this issue.

Some events in world history are uniquely transformative–not just for those directly involved, but for everyone, and everything, that follows. The Holocaust was one such event, and it teaches us that evil has a way of lurking in places where we least expect it. More’s the pity that the German Canadian Congress should publicly deny this universal lesson.

-Wendy Lampert is the national director of Community Relations of Canadian Jewish Congress.