U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned people to "be vigilant about hatred today" at a ceremony at the United Nations General Assembly in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday.
Guterres called the Holocaust a "culmination of hostility towards Jews across the millennia."
"Genocide does not happen in a vacuum," he said. "The gargantuan horror of those 12 years from 1933 [when Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany] to 1945 reverberates to this day. The annual day of commemoration is about the past, but also the future. It is about Jews, but also all others who find themselves scapegoated and vilified solely because of who they are. Today we have two fundamental duties: first, to remember the Holocaust and its victims, second, to be vigilant about hatred today."
The ceremony began with a moment of silence for the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.
Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon also spoke at the ceremony, saying that "on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we pay our respects to the 6 million Jews who perished at the hands of evil."
"We honor the survivors and righteous gentiles who walked the tightrope separating life and death for future generations. We'll remember the fight for moral goodness. Most importantly, we tell our children the unthinkable story of this dark chapter in human history so that no tragedy of its kind will ever happen again," Danon said.
Dannon also spoke out against proposed Polish legislation that would make it illegal to suggest Poland bore any responsibility for the crimes of the Holocaust.
"We must never allow any legislation to pass that denies the truth and rewrites history," Danon said. "We will remember those few brave souls who stood strongly against evil and saved Jews from death. But we will never forget."
Danon then introduced Eva Lavi, the youngest living Holocaust survivor saved by Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist whose efforts to save Jews from the Holocaust were made famous in the 1993 Oscar-winning film "Schindler's List." Lavi was two years old when the war broke out in Poland.
Addressing the General Assembly, Lavi noted that those children who were her age during the war were not able to have a normal childhood. "We heard, we saw and understood everything the Nazis were doing to us."
She said the sight of the Nazis shooting girls her age continued to haunt her.
"My mother saved my life, no, first of all, God, almighty God, second, Mr. Schindler, then my mother. Her name was Felicia Ratz. Because of her, I came here. Every time nothing happened to me, I knew that my life was saved," she said.
"It was not easy to be a child survivor after the war. I continued to hide. Why? My parents did not take me to the meetings with other survivors not to hurt the feelings of those who lost their children. I didn't even go to the meetings with Schindler when he visited Israel. Even now, 73 years after the war, I feel guilty that I survived. When I go with pupils to the camps in Poland and imagine thousands of my brother Jews marching to their deaths, I wonder, 'Why God save me?' Perhaps he wanted me to do something big. And I am only an ordinary woman, no special achievements. But now, when I am here, talking from the United Nations, this is the big something that God planned for me.
Lavi further noted she was a proud Israeli citizen who had served in the Israel Defense Forces.
She said the Holocaust must serve as a warning of what can happen when racism and anti-Semitism disseminate around the world.
