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world news Diabierna 28 Januari 2022

World remembers Holocaust as antisemitism rises in pandemic

(AP) — Survivors recalled of infinite suffering on the
their agony to a world they brink of death are already a
fear is forgetting, Israel’s distant, unimaginable story
parliamentary speaker for new generations,” she
wept in the German par- said.
liament and politicians
warned of a resurgence of Commemorations every-
antisemitism on Thurs- where took place amid a rise
day’s International Holo- of antisemitism that gained
caust Remembrance Day. traction during lockdowns
as the coronavirus pandemic
The day falls on the anni- has exacerbated hatred on-
versary of the liberation by line.
Soviet troops of Auschwitz-
Birkenau, the most notorious German parliament speaker
of the death camps where Baerbel Bas said the pandem-
Nazi Germany carried out ic has acted “like an acceler-
its Final Solution seeking to ant” to already burgeoning
murder the Jewish people of antisemitism.
Europe.
“Antisemitism is here — it
At the memorial site in Po- isn’t just on the extreme
land, which was subjected to fringe, not just among the
a brutal German occupation eternally incorrigible and a
during World War II, a small few antisemitic trolls on the
number of survivors gath- net,” she said. “It is a problem
ered in an auditorium. At- of our society — all of soci-
tendance at the yearly event ety.”
was sharply curtailed amid ration. were the future, and that Shoah inches towards be-
Europe’s coronavirus surge. In recent days alone, a Jews would be something coming a historical event,”
Others joined online. 12-year-old Jewish boy in It- About 6 million European you only find in a museum. Michel said. “More and more
aly was attacked and subject- Jews and millions of other Instead, the Jewish state is distant, more and more ab-
Nazi German forces killed ed to antisemitic slurs while people were killed by the the future, and Mauthausen stract. Especially in the eyes
1.1 million people at Aus- two men were punched in Nazis and their collaborators. is a museum. Rest in peace, of the younger generations of
chwitz, most of them Jews, London. Some 1.5 million were chil- grandfather, you won,” he Europeans. This is why, para-
but also Poles, Roma and oth- dren. said. doxically, the more the years
ers, and the site today stands British Prime Minister Boris go by, the more important the
as a powerful symbol of how Johnson said the London at- “Our country bears a special He was joined by Austrian commemoration becomes.”
hatred and indifference led to tack “is a terrible reminder, responsibility — the geno- Chancellor Karl Nehammer.
the Holocaust. on Holocaust Memorial Day, cide against the European The two men hugged each To tackle Holocaust denial,
that such prejudice is not Jews is a German crime,” Bas other during the memorial UNESCO and the World
Halina Birenbaum, a 92-year- consigned to history, but re- said in the German parlia- service. Jewish Congress launched a
old Polish-born poet who mains a very real problem in ment, the Bundestag. partnership Thursday with
lives in Israel, recalled her society.” “I apologize, on behalf of the online platform TikTok
suffering remotely. She was Israel’s parliamentary speak- the republic of Austria, for popular with youngsters.
10 when the Germans invad- Holocaust survivor Inge Au- er, Mickey Levy, broke down the crimes committed here. They say it will allow users to
ed and occupied Poland in erbacher, 87, told the Ger- in tears in the Bundestag I apologize that your grand- be oriented toward verified
September 1939, and was 13 man parliament she still re- while reciting the Jewish father was murdered here,” information when search-
when she was taken to Aus- members “the terrible time mourner’s prayer from a Nehammer said. ing for terms related to the
chwitz-Birkenau after being of horror and hatred.” prayer book that belonged to Shoah.
led out of the gas chamber of a German Jewish boy who Gathered at the European
the Majdanek camp thanks to “Unfortunately, this cancer celebrated his bar mitzvah on Parliament, EU lawmak- According to the U.N., 17%
a malfunction. has reawakened and hatred of the eve of Kristallnacht, an ers listened to 100-year-old of content related to the Ho-
Jews is commonplace again outburst of anti-Jewish vio- Holocaust survivor Margot locaust on TikTok either de-
“I saw masses of the power- in many countries in the lence in 1938. Friedlander’s ordeal. She was nied or distorted the Holo-
ful but arrogant army of Nazi world, including Germany,” arrested in 1944 and brought caust.
Germany as they marched she said. Levy said that Israel and to Theresienstadt, now part
cruelly, victoriously, into Germany experienced “an of the Czech Republic. A “All online platforms must
the devastated and burning The U.N. General Assembly exceptional journey on the year before, her mother and take responsibility for the
streets of Warsaw,” she re- adopted a resolution in 2005 way to reconciliation and es- brother were deported to spread of hate speech by pro-
called. establishing International tablishing relations and brave Auschwitz and killed. moting reliable sources of in-
Holocaust Remembrance friendship between us.” formation,” said UNESCO
“The countless experiences Day as an annual commemo- “We must be vigilant and not Director-General Audrey
In Austria, Israeli Foreign look the other way as we did Azoulay.
Minister Yair Lapid paid an then,” she said. “Hatred, rac-
emotional visit to the Mau- ism and antisemitism must In Italy, members of the
thausen concentration camp, not be the last word in his- Jewish community and law-
where his grandfather, Bela tory.” makers gathered in Rome’s
Lampel, was murdered in Ghetto to lay a wreath where
1945. Charles Michel, the head of more than 1,000 people were
the EU Council bringing to- rounded up and deported to
“Grandpa Bela, a quiet man gether leaders of the 27 EU Auschwitz on Oct. 16, 1943.
whose family nickname was member countries, insisted
‘Bela the Wise,’ sent me here on the importance of com- In Albania, Foreign Minister
today to say on his behalf, memorating the Shoah as the Olta Xhacka honored Holo-
that the Jews have not sur- number of survivors dimin- caust victims while express-
rendered,” Lapid said. ishes every year. ing pride in his country’s role
in sheltering Jews.
“The Nazis thought they “With each passing year, the