The Instructive Power of Outrage: Remembering Nuremberg (Hate, Genocide and Human Rights Fifty Years Later: What Have We Learned? What Must We Do ?) (Transcript) - McGill Law Journal

The Instructive Power of Outrage: Remembering Nuremberg (Hate, Genocide and Human Rights Fifty Years Later: What Have We Learned? What Must We Do ?) (Transcript)

By McGill Law Journal

  • Release Date: 2000-11-01
  • Genre: Law

Description

The speaker acknowledges the deep significance that Nuremberg holds for her as a Jew and as the child of Holocaust survivors. By relating some of her personal story, she powerfully conveys the despair of those for whom the justice of Nuremberg came too late. The speaker argues that Nuremberg represents the failure of Western nations to respond to the anti-Semitism that grew to horrifying proportions in Germany in the 1930s. Further she stresses that the justice that Nuremberg offered was fleeting because of the same nations' willingness to repress the memory of the horrors that led to it. Thus, while Nuremberg led to the development of concepts, institutions, and conventions that have forwarded the cause of human rights, it was not sufficient in itself to prevent the continued oppression of Jews. The speaker concludes from the example of Nuremberg that war crimes tribunals do hOt prevent gross violations of human rights, nor do they create an international moral culture that does not tolerate the slaughter, abuse, and terrorization of men, women, and children. The memory of Nuremberg, and the outrage of the Nazi atrocities, must be used to create a society of tolerance; the speaker maintains that as a Jew, and as a member of the human family, she has lost the right to stand silent in the face of gross injustice. The speaker concludes by passionately declaring there must be no more victims. L'auteur fait etat de l'importance particuliere que revet pour elle le proces de Nuremberg, en tant que Juive et qu'enfant de survivants de l'Holocauste. Relatant des extraits de son histoire personnelle, elle fait ressortir avec force le desespoir de ceux pour lesquels la justice de Nuremberg vint malheureusement trop tard. Le proces en lui-meme a mis en lumiere J'echec. des democraties occidentales a faire face a l'antisemitisme qui avait deja, dans l'Allemagne des annees 1930, atteint des proportions horrifiantes ; il n'a, de plus, offert qu'une justice ephemere en raison de la volonte de ces memes nations de refouler a jamais la memoire des horreurs qui en furent la cause. Ainsi, bien que le proces ait permi le developpement de concepts, d'institutions et de conventions internationales qui ont mene a des progres importants de la cause des droits de l'homme, il se revela insuffisant pour prevenir l'oppression des Juifs. Cet exemple montre que les tribunaux internationaux charges de juger les crimes de guerre sont en eux-memes impuissants a prevenir les violations des droits de l'homme ou a creer une culture morale internationale qui mettrait fin au massacres, aux mauvais traitements et aux tactiques de terreur a l'egard de populations innocentes. La memoire de Nuremberg et des atrocites commises par les Nazis doit etre mise a contribution pour creer une societe de tolerance; en tant que Juive et que membre de la famille humaine, l'auteur affirme avoir perdu le droit au silence face aux pires injustices. Il ne faut pas laisser des evenements de ce genre faire d'autres victimes.

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