International Holocaust Remembrance Day
A round-table discussion on Antisemitism in Europe took place yesterday in Athens, to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th. Professors Michal Govrin, Christina Koulouri and Giorgos Antoniou leaded the event.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly with a resolution (A/RES/60/7), to condemn “without reserve” all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they occur. The resolution declared that the United Nations would designate 27 January — the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp — as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and urged Member States to develop educational programmes to instill the memory of the tragedy in future generations to prevent genocide from occurring again. It requested the United Nations Secretary-General to establish an outreach programme on the “Holocaust and the United Nations”, as well as institute measures to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.
The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement regarding the International Holocaust Remembrance Day:
“With the greatest respect, the Greek state today honors, as it does every year, on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the memory of the millions of innocent victims of the Nazi Holocaust. We feel particular abhorrence at the memory of the mass extermination of the Jewish population by the Hitler regime, which dealt an extremely painful blow to the community of Greek Jews. The Greek state is making every effort to keep the memory of these events alive and pass them on to younger generations. At the same time, it is taking initiatives to redress historical injustices perpetrated against the Greek Jewish community and to institutionally establish respect for the memory of the Holocaust. Greece supports and participates actively in all of the international initiatives for respect of Holocaust remembrance and to fight anti-Semitism and every other form of intolerance, so that humankind may NEVER AGAIN experience such atrocities”.
SOURCE: Embassy of Israel, United Nations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Athens
PHOTO: Embassy of Israel facebook page
