The Holocaust Museum of Porto in Portugal hosted a thousand students from local schools to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The 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.
Addressing the group of school children, Israeli ambassador to Portugal, Oren Rozenblat referenced current events, drawing a parallel between the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, and the rise in antisemitism ever since, and the atrocities of the Holocaust.
He said: “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. But there’s a difference—now we can fight back, and we will, until all our hostages return.”
Ambassador Rozenblat also emphasised the importance of education 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, adding: “We have a duty to educate. The Jewish community of Porto, which created this museum, is doing invaluable work to teach about the Holocaust.”
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.
Stressing the ongoing need for recognition and action, Gabriel Senderowicz, president of the Jewish Community of Porto, and a descendant of Polish Jews who managed to flee to Brazil, said: “We want to see real action that acknowledges the Holocaust’s connection to centuries of genocides against Jews.”
The Porto Holocaust Museum educates new generations about the Holocaust’s roots in earlier genocides against the Jewish people and anti-Semitic violence.
In 2024, it presented a film on the 1506 Lisbon massacre, where more than 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.
