Sir, - As Seamus Martin points out (News Features, January 27th), Ireland did not commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. This omission occurred despite an Irish Government commitment at the International Holocaust Forum in Stockholm last year to educate people on the horrors of genocide. One of the main aims of the forum was to link everyday experiences of racist prejudice (a defining characteristic of Fortress Europe today) with the extremity of what happened in the Holocaust and other genocides. All asylum and immigration procedures which stigmatise and degrade those wishing to come to the EU place us on the dangerous road to unqualified racism. Thugs who harass and beat up those of different race and religion operate in a context of officially sanctioned discrimination and prejudice.
The recent jailing here of Pakistani and Moldovan visitors, despite their holding valid travel papers, indicates the cruel reception which our Government may well afford desperate asylum-seekers without the required documentation.
Also, of course, the commemoration would help us here in Ireland to recall the millions of Jews, along with the other victims of more recent genocides, whose suffering, for so long, we chose with our EU partners and the US to deny and appease. As Rabbi Rubenstein said on RTE's Sunday Show recently, if people cannot get to the roots of why the Holocaust occurred, there is every possibility that it will happen again. - Yours, etc.,
Una McNulty, Bray, Co Wicklow.