INTERNATIONAL DAY IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST MARKED ON JANUARY 27

PanARMENIAN.Net
27.01.2010 12:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The 2010 observance of the International Day in
Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust marked on January 27 will
focus on a central theme: "The Legacy of Survival", which emphasizes
the universal lessons that the survivors will pass on to succeeding
generations. With fewer survivors alive to tell their stories, it
is of primary importance to share this legacy with people everywhere
to encourage respect for diversity and human rights for generations
to come.

"The theme of this year’s commemoration at United Nations offices
around the world is the legacy of survival. Countless men, women and
children suffered the horrors of the ghettos and Nazi death camps, yet
somehow survived. All of them carry a crucial message for all of us.

A message about the triumph of the human spirit. A living testament
that tyranny, though it may rise, will surely not prevail. Survivors
also play a vital role in keeping the lessons of the Holocaust alive
for future generations," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in
his message.

"Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and most notorious of the camps,
was liberated 65 years ago today. There and elsewhere, many millions
of people were systematically abused and murdered. Most of them were
Jews. But others were targeted, too. At Auschwitz, thousands of those
killed were inhabitants of the Roma and Sinti "family camp".

Holocaust survivors will not be with us forever – but the legacy of
their survival must live on. We must preserve their stories – through
memorials, through education, most of all through robust efforts to
prevent genocide and other grave crimes.

The United Nations is fully committed to this cause. Together, let
us pledge to carry forward the mission of Holocaust remembrance –
and uphold human dignity for all."

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored
persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi
regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin
meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany
in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior"
and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the
so-called German racial community.

The slaughter was systematically conducted in virtually all areas
of Nazi-occupied territory in what are now 35 separate European
countries. It was at its worst in Central and Eastern Europe, which
had more than seven million Jews in 1939. About five million Jews were
killed there, including three million in occupied Poland and over
one million in the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands also died in
the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and Greece. The Wannsee
Protocol makes clear that the Nazis also intended to carry out their
"final solution of the Jewish question" in England and Ireland.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress