much longer. Hence the justified importance ascribed to the cultivation of memory
in the face of the threat posed by historical revisionism, in complete disregard of
the immeasurable human suffering of those victimized.9
14.
As the past cannot be changed, the observance of the duty of remembrance
is, in my opinion, not only a way to settle a debt (individual and social) with the
fatal victims, but also a guarantee of non-repetition of these gross violations of
human rights. The duty of remembrance is in fact an imperative of justice and
dignity. It is a duty that one owes oneself and that is also incumbent upon the
whole social body.
15.
I will allow myself to cite a fictional character, Elhanan, (L'oublié, by Elie
Wiesel), who grieves at the gradual loss of his memory to an incurable disease, the
legacy of which he so desperately wanted to pass onto his son Malkiel “Parce que je
cultive le souvenir, il a décidé de m'en priver,”10 he regrets, and tells his son that
“l'histoire elle-même se montre souvent injuste envers ses victimes. Certaines ont
plus de chance que d'autres. (...) Partout se développe une vaste littérature de la
mémoire.’’11 And the author relates later in the book:
"Toute victoire est provisoire, et celle sur le temps plus que les autres.
Cependant, Elhanan ne peut s'en passer. Pour lui, chaque instant de lucidité est un
triomphe que, de tout son être, il s'efforce de prolonger (...). Aussi a-t-il souvent le
sentiment que le souvenir qu'il évoque pourrait être le dernier, que chacune de ses
paroles pourrait signifier rupture plutôt qu'achèvement. (...) Ainsi Elhanan assistait,
impuissant, à sa propre destruction. L'oubli, pour lui, c'était la mort non seulement de
la connaissance, mais aussi de l'imagination, donc de l'espérance. Mentalement
écartelé, s'efforçant en vain de contrôler ses actes, de transformer la durée en
conscience, il se soumettait sans cesse à des examens (...). L'oubli: mal pire que la
démence (...)."12
16.
The truth is that we need remembrance, which we pass on to one another;
children need the memories of their aged loving parents, and these need their
children’s remembrance. We are all bound together— rather than separated— in
time. Remembrance is a duty of the living toward their dead; the dead need the
remembrance from their surviving loved ones so that they do not cease to exist
once and for all.13
17.
In my Separate Opinion in the case of Bámaca Velásquez versus Guatemala
(Merits, 2000), I mentioned that:
“In my view, the time— or rather, the passing of the time— does not
represent an element of separation, but rather of approximation and union, between
the living and the dead, in the common journey of all towards the unknown. The
knowledge and the preservation of the spiritual legacy of our predecessors constitute a
means whereby the dead can communicate with the living. Just as the living
experience of a human community develops with the continuous flux of thought and
action of the individuals who compose it, there is likewise a spiritual dimension which
.
On the imperative of the "respectful remembrance" of the direct victims, cf., e.g. A. Liss,
Trespassing through Shadows - Memory, Photography and the Holocaust, Minneapolis/London, Univ. of
Minnesota Press, 1998, pp. XII-XIII, 8, 72, 82, 86, 116 and 121.
9
.
E. Wiesel, L'oublié, Paris, Éd. Seuil, 1989, p. 77.
.
Ibid., p. 109.
.
Ibid., pp. 221 and 278.
10
11
12
.
As Thomas à Kempis noted, already in his time (1380-1471), "today a man is here; tomorrow
he is gone. And when he is out of sight, he is soon out of mind". Th. à Kempis, The Inner Life, London,
Penguin, 2004 [reed.], p. 19.
13