The President, Mrs McAleese, has said it is intolerable "that in such a short space of time the lessons of the Holocaust could so easily be overlooked".
The world, she said, "is pockmarked by acts which echo the unthinkable and unspeakable evils that were perpetrated on the Jewish people within living memory".
Speaking last night in Dublin's City Hall at a ceremony to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, she quoted poet Czeslaw Milosz, who questioned whether even Europe had learned the lesson of the Holocaust. She read from his poem Sarajevo: "while a country murdered and raped calls for help from the Europe which it has trusted, they yawn . . . because they are after all just barbarians killing each other".
Those words hit home with her, she said, "for how often have I heard in the past the violence of Northern Ireland dismissed in similar terms. Sectarian hatred, racist hatred are awesome when they run amok".
Many would know that building bridges was the theme she chose for her presidency, she said. A particular meaning of that arose from her experience of living in a violent society, where sectarian hatred and bigotry robbed so many of their lives, their health and their peace of mind.
"There is nothing humanly uplifting in the sheer wastefulness of it all, nothing but heartache in the empty depravity of it all. At last the voices of peace on all sides have, together, created the great bridge of hope that is the Good Friday agreement. For all its frailty it is an infinitely better road to travel to the future on than the one that lies behind us," she said.
Ms Mary Banotti MEP read a summary of the Stockholm declaration of January 2000 which committed 44 countries to remember the Holocaust. Mr Oliver Donohoe, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Day committee, read a message from the President of the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox.
There were readings by poets Micheál Ó Síadhail and Máire Mac an tSaoi; by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell; broadcaster Mr John Bowman; Mr Peter Cassells; by Holocaust survivor Ms Suzi Diamond; the son of a survivor, Mr David Reichenatal; Dr Nicholas Bielenberg; Mr Jon Zatreanu on behalf of Roma victims; and prayers by the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Very Rev Dr Yaakov Pearlman. Two choral interludes were provided by the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Among the attendance were Cardinal Desmond Connell; the papal nuncio Archbishop Lazarotto; the former Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Donald Caird; members of the diplomatic corps; Sen Mary O'Rourke; and Cllrs Michael Donnelly and Dermot Lacey.
