(Communicated by the MFA Spokesperson’s Bureau)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is held on 27 January - the day that the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated, in 1945, by the Red Army. Events to mark the day are organized each year by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via its missions and envoys abroad. Ceremonies, educational activities, cultural performances, film screenings and other events take place in 100 states and in Israeli missions on every continent, from New Zealand, China, Korea and India to Albania, Russia, Germany and Britain; from Rwanda, Ethiopia and Senegal to the United States and Mexico.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sends lecturers and Holocaust survivors to teach about the Holocaust and to give first-hand testimony. This year, special emphasis is being given to Africa and China; in the latter, activities marking the day are taking place in Israel’s four Chinese missions for the first time.

US President Barak Obama will be present at a ceremony at the Israeli embassy in Washington honoring four Righteous Gentiles. Other central ceremonies will be held this year, as every year, at Auschwitz, with the participation of many European officials, as well as at the European Parliament in Brussels and at the UN.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers preserving the memory of the Holocaust and its victims to be a moral and ethical objective of the first order in the foreign policy of the State of Israel. Through the Antisemitism and Holocaust Remembrance Department and more than 100 Israeli missions abroad, the Ministry strives to perpetuate the memory of the victims, to spread the universal messages learned from the Holocaust, and to combat Holocaust denial and antisemitism throughout the world.