Jerry Fowler, staff director of the Committee on Conscience at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, spoke last week in Sturm Hall about “The Role of Holocaust Remembrance in Combating Contemporary Genocide.”Fowler said that the museum reflects on “what it means to be human.” He then read a passage about humanity from Elie Wiesel’s Night. Wiesel was the keynote speaker at the opening of the museum in April 1993. “The story of the Holocaust has compelling and universal themes,” said Fowler. He said that learning from the Holocaust is to learn that choices have consequences. If people do not make the right choices, then what happened once can happen again. Fowler also commented on the role of bystanders in genocide. He said that their reactions to the situation affect others and shape society around them. “The witness protects against the distortion and denial of history,” said Fowler. He then went on to speak about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. He said that there are ethnic groups being attacked because they are viewed as black. Children are dying and girls are being raped. Two million people have been driven from their homes and many are living in refugee camps in Chad, neighbor to Sudan. Fowler went to Chad in 2004 and spoke to the refugees about the sexual violence in Darfur. Fowler said that the sentiments of the refugees were similar to those of Holocaust survivors. Fowler said that the United States did not stop the killing during the Holocaust and is not doing enough now to stop the genocides in Africa. “Why is the U.S. government declaring the situation in Sudan genocide, but treating it as business as usual?” he said. “The United States needs to invest political and diplomatic resources to help the refugees and to establish security. However, many governments do not respond to these situations until there is some sort of political risk in not responding.”At the end of his lecture, Fowler gave out a list of things that people can do to help stop the genocide in Darfur. These action items include keeping informed through news sources, expressing opinions by writing an editorial for a local newspaper, expressing concerns to government representatives and supporting relief efforts and speaking with people in the community about the situation. This event was sponsored by the Holocaust Awareness Institute, part of the Center for Judaic Studies at DU.For more information, go to www.committeeonconscience.org.