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Entry to Auschwitz - Source: ONE News -
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Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom used a visit to the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz to lament a rise in anti-Semitism worldwide that he accused Iran's president of trying to fan.
Standing beneath the notorious sign "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes free) at the entrance to the camp, Shalom urged Jews and their supporters to show unity in the face of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attacks against Israel.
"After 64 years we still have to deal with prejudice, with hate, with those trying to do everything they can in order to destroy the Jewish state, the state of Israel," Shalom told participants in the annual March of the Living.
Up to 7,000 people, mostly Jews from all over the world, took part in the march from Auschwitz to the crematoria of Birkenau in southern Poland to pay tribute to the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War Two.
The event came one day after Ahmadinejad prompted a rare walk-out at the United Nations in Geneva when he called Israel a "cruel and repressive racist regime" in remarks to a conference aiming to foster tolerance among races.
Ahmadinejad has long cast doubt on the Nazi Holocaust.
"What happened yesterday in Geneva shows us we still have to teach the lesson of the Holocaust to all peoples around the world... Here from Auschwitz, as a representative of the Israeli state, I say 'never again'," Shalom said.
The marchers, many swathed in Israeli flags, lit candles and laid wreaths at Auschwitz, largest of the Nazi concentration camps which is located in the Polish town of Oswiecim.
Shalom praised Poland, Germany, the United States and other countries for boycotting the Geneva conference. Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland in protest over the event.
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