the document will send a strong message to Iran and others who appear to question the mass murder of Jews took place, BosNewsLife monitored Sunday, January 28.
The UN resolution, which passed by consensus and was sponsored by 103 states, "condemns and rejects" any attempt to deny that the Holocaust was an historical event.
It also calls on all states to reject denial of any kind of the Holocaust, in which at least 6 million Jews died along with others the Nazi’s didn’t like, one of the worst acts of genocide in human history
"In recent weeks Israel, through its missions all over the world, has worked together with a central bloc of states to promote adoption of the resolution," said Israel’s Foreign Ministry in a statement to BosNewsLife.
"SPECIAL IMPORTANCE"
"The resolution reflects the special importance with which the international community views the subject, especially considering the worrying phenomenon of denial that has cropped up lately," the Ministry said.
It was a reference to people including British historian David Irving, who was freed by a court in Vienna in December, thirteen months after being jailed in Austria for statements denying the Holocaust.
Noting that he made the statements "a long time ago, 17 years," the appeals court said it did not expect Irving, 68, to repeat the offense, and added that he could serve the remainder of his prison sentence at home on probation.
Israel said it hopes the UN resolution will also "provide a strong answer to the message of the President of Iran [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] and the Teheran Holocaust Conference," where officials recently questioned the Holocaust.
REMEMBRANCE DAY
The UN resolution adopted Friday, January 26, came on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day set by an historic UN General Assembly resolution proposed by Israel in November 2005.
Events commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day were taking place around the world 62 years after the Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Commemorations in many countries were also honoring the victims of other 20th century atrocities, including those in the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda and Kosovo.
The central commemoration was held Saturday at the notorious camp in Poland where Nazis killed more than a million people, mostly Jews, before the end of World War II.
CURATORS CONCERNED
It came as curators of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and museum warned that the original structures, including the notorious gas chambers are decaying and need repair. Some scholars have warned that any new constructions might give fodder to those who deny that Holocaust happened.
The Holocaust was also commemorated elsewhere in Europe, including in Germany where a ceremony was held at the former concentration camp of Sachsenhausen.
There was also a wreath-laying ceremony on Berlin’s Putlitz Bridge, where there is a plaque commemorating the deportation of the city’s Jewish community during the Nazi regime. The bridge has reportedly been targeted in the past by far-right groups.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, urged "all courageous democrats" to fight against the far-right NPD party, which is represented in regional parliaments.
BERLIN CATHEDRAL
On Saturday evening, hundreds of people attended a concert at Berlin Cathedral with proceeds will going to a group that provides counseling and support for survivors of the Holocaust living in Israel.
Germany has been observing Holocaust Memorial Day since 1996. In Hungary, which was a close ally of Nazi Germany, several commemorations were held to remember the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
They included an official ceremony attended by several government officials in the capital’s Holocaust Memorial Center, marking the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1945.
Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany warned in a statement that the "fight against forgetting is nothing less than a permanent effort against suppression, exclusion, discrimination and tyranny.
SEVERAL OFFICIALS
The ceremony was attended by Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom, Constitutional Court President Zoltan Lomniczi and the ambassadors of Germany, Poland, the United States, Israel and Russia, who were seen placing candles at the victims’ memorial wall.
This month Hungary and Israel agreed to improve education in Hungary about the Holocaust, which was a taboo study topic when the country was a Soviet satellite state. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reports from Israel, Poland, Germany and Hungary. bosnewslife.com).
