UNESCO Seminar on Holocaust Remembrance

Dr. David W. Pike, director of research at AGSIRD, and five AGSIRD students participated in the UNESCO seminar on Holocaust remembrance on June 3rd, 2008. The seminar, entitled "Applying the Lessons of the Holocaust to Combat Contemporary Expressions of Hatred" was presided by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, the Director-General of UNESCO, and organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Russian Holocaust Foundation and the French Association Verbe et Lumière-Vigilance.

Being the Paris hosts of five Russian students who had won the Russian Holocaust Foundation prize for their essay on the Holocaust, AGSIRD students had many opportunities for interesting exchanges during and outside of the seminar.

Says Patrick Clairzier, class of 2009: "This experience was very interesting. The fact that we were made aware of the growing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia via an individual exchange rather than the established international media shows the importance of civil society in international relations." Through this participation, AGSIRD students express their interest and concern for the collective duty of remembrance.