We are now seeing cynical and irresponsible hate speech in our societies, language that targets and dehumanizes those who are different, be it Jews, Roma or LGBTQI+ people, US Ambassador to Bucharest Kathleen Kavalec said on Monday, according to Agerpres.

She participated at the German Embassy in the launch of the Elie Wiesel study tour.

The American diplomat noted that the Holocaust is one of the “key tragedies of the last century.”

• “The last survivors die, we cannot afford to forget these lessons after the horrors,” she said. He also praised the fact that the study of the history of the Holocaust is part of the high school curriculum in Romania, as well as the initiative to open a Holocaust memorial museum.

Kavalets spoke about the current situation.

• “We all want to believe that our democratic societies are safe from a repeat of a phenomenon like the Holocaust, but we know that people are fallible and have short memories. We now see cynical and irresponsible hate speech in our societies, language that targets and dehumanises those who are different, be they Jews, Roma, LGBTQI+ or other minorities. Those who engage in such hate speech always justify and belittle it by claiming that they are simply exercising their right to free expression, but by doing so they trivialize the hatred and encourage the violence that we well know has metastasized, like cancer,” said Kavalets.

She recalled that before becoming the US ambassador to Romania, she was part of the OSCE mission in Sarajevo. In this context, he said that he was in Srebrenica, where 8,000 men and boys were killed in 1995.

“I spoke with the victims’ families. They told me how shocked they were when former neighbors and people they considered friends helped the Serbian forces who killed them, and how quickly it all happened. It makes me realize how fragile our societies are. it may be that we cannot take peace and cooperation for granted,” the diplomat said.

For his part, German Ambassador Peer Gebauer spoke about his country’s responsibility.

“When we think about the horrors of the Holocaust, with six million Jews and all those who managed to survive, we feel pain every time. For me, as a German, the question always arises: “How was this possible? Is it possible that my country, Germany, committed these incredible crimes?” he said.

Regarding the youth programme, he revealed that it was a journey “to places where unimaginable atrocities took place” and to “places of resistance and survival”.