Education District II Partners UNIC To Commemorate Victims Of Holocaust

 The Lagos State Education District II, Maryland, on Monday partnered the United Nations Information Centre, UNIC, to educate students within the District on the popular genocidal murder of the Jewish people some decades ago popularly called Holocaust with emphasis on the need for students to toe the path of virtue and eschew vices capable of nurturing animosity.

The Tutor-General/Permanent Secretary of Education District II, Mrs. Elizabeth Anike Adekanye, who addressed the students at the event, underscored the application and implication of the Holocaust experience to the students in their relationship with their peer groups and colleagues.

She advised teachers to always show love to the students, handle them like their own biological children, extend due courtesies to them, give them warm reception and be there to always assist them.

Adekanye said that the programme was also designed to create the consciousness of brotherliness in the minds of the school children from a very tender age such that as they grow they would eschew discrimination on the basis of religion, sex, race, political differences and in all other possible ways.

In her words, “They should say no to alcoholism, cultism, absenteeism, they should say yes to brilliancy, punctuality and diligence, Yes to be an asset to their immediate community and the State government as a whole.

The National Information Officer for UNIC in Nigeria, Dr. Seyi Somerekun, explained that the partnership between the Department of Global Communications of UNIC and the Education District was aimed at curbing the rate of rising hatred and antisemitism globally.

“In order to address this issue of rising hatred against people either as a result of their tribe, sex, religion, political inclinations that is why the 27th of January every year was set aside in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust with the theme: “75 Years after Auschwitz – Holocaust Education and Remembrance for Global Justice”,the UNIC representative reiterated.

He maintained that the incident that led to the Holocaust is also very imminent in today’s society, stressing that efforts must be intensified to nip in the bud the spread of such incident.

“Hatred against people because of their race, religion, tribe is not acceptable. What we are telling these youths is to be tolerant of the other persons irrespective of their differences.

“If we adhere to the inferences from the fundamental human rights which say that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity, we will not have the repetition of the Holocaust experience because it remains the darkest era in human history,” Somerekun stated.

Recall that Holocaust victims were people targeted by the government of Nazi Germany for various discriminatory practices due to their ethnic, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the country’s official memorial to the Holocaust, The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.

The museum puts the total number of persons murdered during the Holocaust at 17 million: 6 million Jews and 11 million others.