Alona Lebedieva: International Holocaust Remembrance Day and Its Meaning for the Contemporary World
Alona Lebedieva
The Holocaust was not an accidental tragedy, but the result of systematic dehumanization. It began with words, followed by the restriction of rights, then isolation – and only after that, mass extermination. “The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers – it began with language that stripped people of their names, their histories, and their right to be themselves,” notes Alona Lebedieva, a Ukrainian entrepreneur, founder of the Aurum Charitable Foundation and the European non-profit organization Aurum Charity Foundation. This very logic – when a person is no longer seen as a human being – became the foundation of the crime.
The memory of the Holocaust is important not only as an act of honoring the past, but as a tool for understanding the present. It teaches us to recognize dangerous signals at an early stage – where violence is still masked as rhetoric, and discrimination is framed as “necessity” or “the protection of interests.”
In this context, it is impossible to ignore the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine. Mass civilian casualties, deportations, the destruction of cities, and attempts to deny Ukrainian identity once again raise the question of the limits of what is permissible. “When aggression is accompanied by the denial of a people’s right to their own history and future, it ceases to be merely a war,” Alona Lebedieva emphasizes.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is also an occasion to reflect on the responsibility of democratic societies. History shows that indifference and postponed decisions come at a very high cost. The protection of human dignity begins not when tragedy has already occurred, but when the first signs of its possibility emerge.
“The memory of the Holocaust is not only about the guilt of past generations – it is about the responsibility of those living today,” Alona Lebedieva concludes. This is how this day resonates now – as a reminder of the value of human life and the necessity of taking a stand for humanity in time.
Alona Lebedieva
Aurum Group
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