Israeli Ambassador to Portugal says difference between Shoah and today: “Now We Can Fight Back.”
The Holocaust Museum of Porto, Portugal, hosted a thousand students from local schools and other dignitaries including Israeli Ambassador to Portugal, Oren Rozenblat, on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day which marks the 80th anniversary of the libération of Auschwitz-Biorkenau extermination camps.
Addressing the crowd, Ambassador Rozenblat referenced current events, drawing a parallel between the massacre on October 7, 2023, and the rise in antisemitism ever since, and the atrocities of the Holocaust.
“Since the October 7th massacre antisemitism has raised its ugly face, but we will fight it. The number of Jews murdered that day was the highest since the Holocaust,” he said. “But there’s a difference—now we can fight back, and we will, until all our hostages return.”
The ambassador also emphasized the importance of education 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz. “We have a duty to educate,” he said. “The Jewish community of Porto, which created this museum, is doing invaluable work to teach about the Holocaust.”
The Porto Holocaust Museum, filled with artifacts brought with refugees who arrived in the city in the 1940s, is the only museum of its kind in Europe operated by a Jewish community. Its leaders, many of whom lost family members during the Holocaust, remain committed to preserving the memory of the unique tragedy.
Michael Rothwell, the museum’s director, shared his personal connection to the history of the Holocaust, noting that many of the museum’s leaders, including himself, grew up without grandparents and with traumatized parents. “Some were shot after digging their own graves; others were gassed and burned in Auschwitz. Some survived only through unimaginable suffering,” he explained.
Rothwell also pointed out that the roots of the Holocaust go back centuries, noting that Jews were long defamed as usurers, child murderers, and traitors. “The Nazis exploited these age-old prejudices in order to implement the Final Solution,” he said.
The Porto Holocaust Museum continues to educate new generations about the Holocaust’s roots in earlier genocides against the Jewish people and anti-Semitic violence. In 2024, the museum presented a film on the 1506 Lisbon massacre, where over 3,000 Jews were brutally murdered. A follow-up film, scheduled for release in May, will address the infamous 1493 abduction of 2,000 Spanish Jewish children, in collaboration with the Hispanic Jewish Foundation.
Gabriel Senderowicz, president of the Jewish Community of Porto, and a descendant of Polish Jews who managed to flee to Brazil, expressed frustration with empty promises of “Never Again.”
“We want to see real action that acknowledges the Holocaust’s connection to centuries of genocides against Jews,” he said, stressing the ongoing need for recognition and action.