-
Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu places a candle at a memorial in Auschwitz - Source: Reuters -
Related
Israel's leaders, with Iran on their minds, vowed never again to
allow the hand of evil to kill Jews as the world marked
International Holocaust Memorial Day.
Speaking at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, liberated by
Soviet troops 65 years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
a strong Israeli state was the only guarantee for the security of
his people.
In Berlin, Israeli President Shimon Peres told the German
parliament Iran posed a threat to the whole world and lashed out at
its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust and
has called for the destruction of the Jewish state.
"From this site, I vow as the leader of the Jewish state that we
will never again allow the hand of evil to destroy the life of our
people and the life of our state. Never again," Netanyahu said at
the Auschwitz ceremony.
"We will not allow the deniers of the Holocaust... to erase or
distort the memory (of what happened)," he said, in a clear
reference to Ahmadinejad's denial of the Nazis' genocide.
Poland's president and prime minister, the education ministers
from nearly 30 nations and about 150 camp survivors attended the
commemoration.
In subzero temperatures, young Israelis placed candles on top of
the crematoria nearby where the Nazis' victims were gassed.
Up to 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, perished at Auschwitz,
located near the village of Oswiecim in southern Poland, before
Soviet troops liberated it on January 27, 1945.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest and most notorious of the Nazi
death camps. Others built by Germans on occupied Polish territory
include Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.
Beware dictators
Like Netanyahu, Peres stressed the need for vigilance.
"Never again ignore blood-thirsty dictators, hiding behind
demagogical masks, who utter murderous slogans," he told the German
lawmakers in a speech delivered in Hebrew.
"The threats to annihilate a people and a nation are voiced in the
shadow of weapons of mass destruction, which are held by
irresponsible hands, by irrational thinking and in an untruthful
language," said Peres.
Western nations and Israel suspect Iran of trying to build nuclear
weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
It says its nuclear activity is for civilian purposes.
Peres, 86, recalled how his grandfather was burned to death in a
Belarus synagogue that the Nazis locked from the outside.
He also paid tribute to post-war democratic Germany's close ties
with the state of Israel and praised Iranians who protested against
the outcome of last year's presidential election that saw
Ahmadinejad return to power.
The theme of the commemoration at Auschwitz was the education of
young people about the Holocaust.
"This place determined who I am today, aged nearly 90. I still have
one mission -- to pass on to the next generation knowledge of what
happened here," August Kowalczyk, one of very few of the camp
prisoners to escape, told reporters at the site.
"The need for teaching about Auschwitz is greater than ever
before," Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, 87, a Catholic survivor of
Auschwitz and now the Polish government's special envoy for
relations with Germany, said at the ceremony.
Poland was home to Europe's largest Jewish community before World
War II.
The vast majority perished in the Nazi camps.
Anti-Semitism
Jewish groups have voiced concern about what they see as a rise in
anti-Semitism and xenophobia in some European countries and have
called for more education about the Holocaust.
Earlier this week, they angrily criticised a Polish Catholic bishop
after he was quoted as saying Jews had expropriated the Holocaust
as a propaganda weapon.
Roma, homosexuals and other groups were also systematically
murdered there by the Nazis.
Speaking to the Italian parliament in Rome on Wednesday, Nobel
Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel attacked
wartime Pope Pius XII for his silence during the Nazis' mass
killings of Jews.
German-born Pope Bendict has annoyed Jews by defending the
actions of his wartime predecessor.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk vowed to protect the site of
Auschwitz-Birkenau, which is now a museum encompassing 155
buildings, 300 ruined facilities and hundreds of thousands of
personal items.
It is on the UNESCO world heritage list.
"This is a great task for my generation and my country to safeguard
the buildings, the fences, every single hair, the toys, the
glasses," Tusk told the ceremony.
World News Video
-
Dangerous rush to Everest summit (1:59)
-
Dozens killed in Syrian massacre (2:09)
-
'King of Romance' competes in Eurovision (1:46)
