UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urges renewed action against antisemitism in Holocaust remembrance address
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Summary
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered a remembrance address honoring Holocaust victims and survivors, warned that antisemitism and other forms of hate are resurging globally, and urged collective action to protect democratic institutions and human dignity.
Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, urged the international community on Thursday to confront rising antisemitism and preserve the memory of Holocaust victims, saying remembrance is both a duty and a shield against prejudice.
Speaking to a gathering that included Holocaust survivors and their families, Guterres said the Holocaust should be remembered not only for its history but as a warning: "6,000,000 Jews murdered just because they were Jewish," he said, and he named Roma and Sinti, people with disabilities and LGBTQI+ people among those also enslaved, persecuted and killed.
Guterres said remembrance requires action to "defend dignity, to protect the vulnerable," and to prevent the conditions that enable mass atrocity. He described how hatred was propagated through propaganda, the erosion of democratic institutions, attacks on the press and civil society, corruption of courts and manipulation of public discourse, and warned that "the Holocaust did not begin with killing. It began with words." He added that modern technology can spread anti‑Semitic and racist hatred "with devastating efficiency."
The secretary-general also condemned the October 7 terror attack, saying he "categorically condemn[s]" the violence, the taking of hostages and ongoing acts of hatred targeting Jewish communities worldwide.
Drawing on personal experience, Guterres recalled that as prime minister of Portugal he worked with parliament to revoke the sixteenth‑century expulsion of Jews and noted that tens of thousands of descendants have since regained Portuguese nationality, a symbolic act he said demonstrated the importance of acknowledging past crimes and expressing remorse.
He referenced the Nuremberg trials as establishing a new era of international criminal law and quoted Justice Robert H. Jackson to underscore the persistent threat of xenophobic ideologies. Guterres closed by urging a renewed commitment to justice, dignity and human rights "so that the terrible legacy of the past strengthens our resolve to protect human rights today and in the future." The event concluded with thanks to the secretary‑general.
The address combined historical remembrance, a catalog of contemporary threats and a call for collective, multilateral responses to hate and discrimination. No formal resolutions or votes were recorded during the session.
