- Disappearance of witnesses and the need to ensure the relay in terms of content and form
We are at a turning point in our history, the history of the Auschwitz Foundation, the history of Europe, which requires us to engage in an ethical reflection, which will determine how we act. Indeed, a whole generation is gradually retiring and we will have to assume the responsibility of carrying and transmitting the memory of the Auschwitz Foundation alone. Hence the need for an ethical charter.
The Auschwitz Foundation was founded to preserve and pass on the memory of the victims of the Jewish genocide and the Nazi crimes against which Jews and non-Jews alike risked their lives. The survivors were united in the priority to warn young people about the dangers of extremism and to show them what it can lead to. They will do so until their final breath. This is its primary mission, supplemented by the possibility of supporting initiatives against racism and discrimination.
- The mission to preserve, transmit and educate Belgian and European civil society, to contribute to the construction and defence of the latter as a democratic space
If ethics govern the behaviour that allows us to live together, then the Auschwitz Foundation is firmly involved in Belgian society as well as in European society. The range of its activities covers the cultural, educational, scientific domains and archive and heritage preservation that are part of its history.
The challenges of transmission are not limited to content, but also concern the models on which individual and group behaviour is based. In this respect, models based on action (heroism, resistance, indignation), however fundamental they may be, are not enough to account for, raise and maintain awareness of what victims, often entire families, have suffered, totally vulnerable to criminals and genocide perpetrators.
Furthermore, it is of prime importance to apply a differentiated approach to acts of violence and to learn not to think about them and confusing them, but, on the contrary, to underline their specificities and all their complexity. In this sense, we must counter any attempt at generalisation leading to the global incrimination of a population or an ethnic group, and learn that the world is not simply divided between winners and losers, between good and evil. It is important to remember that victims remain victims and are not interchangeable with criminals in any way.
To this end, the Auschwitz Foundation has a mission to inform the general public about the historical violence of the 20th century and to provide encouragement, support and even guidance for research.
- Building and strengthening relationships in a society often plagued by fragmentation and partisan interests
Within the framework of its competences and its mission of memory preservation and transmission, the Auschwitz Foundation's initiatives are aimed at both individuals, whatever their community affiliation, to maintain respect and the values of living together, and towards institutions to encourage and maintain the spirit of joint, unifying and participative work.
In this sense, the Auschwitz Foundation is at the disposal of any association, in particular, and any institution, in general, as well as the scientific community, to provide a framework and support in the fields that fall within the scope of its missions. It is ready to intervene at the ethical and scientific levels with political institutions, but without taking a political position. It is a question of defending a relationship with knowledge and memory that is free of any rivalry or polemics.