ArmenPress
Jan 24 2005
ARMENIAN PM TO ATTEND CEREMONY OF LIBERATION OF NAZI DEATH CAMP IN
POLAND
YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, ARMENPRESS: Armenian prime minister Andranik
Margarian and several other government officials are flying to Polish
Krakow to attend January 27 ceremonies there marking the 60-th
anniversary of liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Soviet
troops near the town of Oswiecim.
The ceremonies will be attended by many heads of states and
governments. Armenian officials will meet also with members of the
Armenian community of Poland.
For the first time in its history, the United Nations on Monday
marks the liberation of Nazi death camps during World War II.
Foreign ministers of Israel, Germany, France, Argentina, Armenia,
Canada and Luxembourg, representing the European Union, are scheduled
to speak. Between 1 million and 1.5 million prisoners, most of them
Jews, were killed in Auschwitz alone, dying in gas chambers or of
starvation and disease. Six million Jews overall were exterminated in
Nazi death camps.
Some 600,000 citizens of Soviet Armenia, then a republic of less
than two million inhabitants, took part in the WW II . Only half of
them stayed alive.