The Holocaust Museum of Oporto, Portugal marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday by hosting 1,000 students from local schools.
Among the dignitaries in attendance was Israeli Ambassador to Portugal Oren Rozenblat, who drew a parallel between the Holocaust and the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre.
“Since the Oct. 7 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.”
Rozenblat 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 [Oporto], which created this museum, is doing invaluable work to teach about the Holocaust.”
The Oporto Holocaust Museum, featuring artifacts brought by 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 Holocaust, noting that many of the museum’s leaders, including himself, grew up without grandparents.
“Some were shot after digging their own graves; others were gassed and burned in Auschwitz. Some survived only through unimaginable suffering,” he said.
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.
Gabriel Senderowicz, president of the Jewish Community of Oporto, and a descendant of Polish Jews who managed to flee to Brazil, expressed frustration with what he said were 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.
The Oporto Jewish community, one of the most active in Europe, has held many events at its Holocaust museum to educate new generations about the Holocaust and its roots.
In 2024, the museum presented a film on the 1506 Lisbon massacre, in which over 3,000 Jews were brutally murdered. A follow-up film produced in collaboration with the Hispanic Jewish Foundation and scheduled for release in May, will address the infamous 1493 abduction of 2,000 Spanish Jewish children.
The museum commemorated Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, in November. Some 2,500 teenagers from schools across Portugal attended the commemoration, which was sponsored by the British embassy in Portugal.
