‘Lasting peace in Middle East possible’ – US envoy for Holocaust issues

With US President Joe Biden hard at work to sustain backing for his proposed Gaza ceasefire plan from the UN Security Council, his special envoy for the Holocaust issues was on Monday confident about peace in the war-torn Middle East.

Ellen Germain, who is visiting SA, said she was “always hopeful that a lasting peace will be achieved in the Middle East”.

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At the core of the Biden solution is a three-stage deal – the release of remaining hostages in return for Israel accepting steps towards a permanent ceasefire and the eventual withdrawal of its forces from Gaza.

Apartheid-Holocaust parallels

Reflecting on the parallels between South Africa under apartheid and the Holocaust, Germain said: “Studying the Holocaust and its history, shows us that genocide is a process – not something that just happens.

“Polish Holocaust survivor Marian Turski shows us that Auschwitz did not just fall from the sky. The Holocaust started with little steps: Jews not allowed to sit on the same benches, not allowed to go to the same schools, work in only in certain professions and not allowed to live in certain areas,” Germain said.

“They were ethnically cleansed from those areas and pushed into ghettos. Studying the Holocaust and seeing the horrific end – that was the murder of six million Jews. It is a horrific end to an unchecked hatred.”

Germain called on the world to “develop early warning signs of a genocide”.

“These could emerge as political or social; someone, an organisation, trying to push things to a worst end,” she said.

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Warning signs

“The state department in the US has a unit in our Bureau for Conflict and Stability Operations that works on atrocity early prevention identification; how we can identify and prevent atrocities from happening.

“Early warning signs, such as election violence and recruitment of people into terrorist groups form part of early detection,” said Germain.

“When I went through the District Six Museum in Cape Town and read about the Group Areas Act – how certain ethnic groups were moved away from their place of birth – there are inescapable parallels and echoes,” she said.

She described her visit as offering her “an opportunity to talk and listen”.

With her work deeply rooted in the principles of justice, human rights and the preservation of historical truth, she has led the US government’s efforts to return the Holocaust-era assets to their rightful owners, secure compensation for Nazi-era wrongs and combating Holocaust distortion globally.