Off the wire
• UNECA chief urges Africans to address cause of conflicts towards improved economic performance  • 1st LD Writethru: 7 policemen killed in leftwing rebel attack in central India  • UN chief touts "Clean Trillion" dollars in investment to limit climate change  • 4 soldiers killed, 12 injured in Egypt's Sinai blast  • LME base metals prices increase on Wednesday  • British FTSE 100 rises 1.33 pct on Wednesday  • 1st LD Writethru: At least 12 killed in NE Nigeria suicide attack  • Latvian tax authority aims for 6 pct rise in tax revenue in 2016  • U.S. stocks trade mixed around midday ahead of Fed statement  • Feature: Snow storm adds to misery of Syrian refugees in north Lebanon  
You are here: 　 Home

Council of Europe observes International Holocaust Commemoration

Xinhua, January 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

Leaders of the Council of Europe (CoE) gathered at the organization's headquarters in Strasbourg on Wednesday for a ceremony to observe the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the Victims of the Holocaust during the Second World War.

"Industrial genocide against a whole people or a whole group of people cannot be entertained without the contribution of many normal people," warned Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the CoE in an address, adding: "In order to get ordinary people to participate in such a thing, you have to dehumanize the people you want to kill."

"Never again will we let a group of people be dehumanized by taking away their rights, taking away their property, because this is how the holocaust started," the Secretary General declared.

Pedro Agramunt, newly elected President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which is currently meeting for its winter plenary session, held up the "moral and intellectual responsibility" to recognize and remember the victims of the Holocaust.

"We have to be willing to speak out against atrocities, no matter where they take place, no matter who are the victims," the PACE President affirmed.

The Israeli Ambassador to the international institutions in France, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, warned against democracies "turning a blind eye" to the aspirations of totalitarian regimes.

"Only by standing firm and embracing the values of liberty and tolerance can we ensure the future of human kind," he insisted.

The leaders addressed a group of about three hundred people before laying commemorative wreathes at the foot of the CoE's holocaust memorial. Representatives of other communities who were persecuted by the Nazis were also present, including leaders of the European Roma community, and the homosexual community.

The ceremony comes at a time when tensions are high in Europe after the ongoing refugee crisis, which saw more than 1 million people arrive on the continent, have strained resources and divided public opinion. The protection of migrants' and asylum seekers' rights is an ongoing debate, which is at the center of the PACE plenary session currently underway, being held from Jan 25 - 29.

Held on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Jan. 27, 1945 by the army of the Soviet Union, the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust sees countries and organizations around the world pay homage to the nearly 6 million people who died in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War (WWII). Endit