Brussels, Belgium
AP
European Union leaders pledged on Wednesday to confront the rise of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic, on the eve of the annual commemorations of Auschwitz’s liberation.
European Council President Charles Michel said the lessons of the Holocaust are now “more relevant than ever.”
“First, because Jewish people feel threatened, and they are threatened,” he said. “They are even attacked in Europe. Just because they are Jewish. We do not accept this. We will never accept it.”
A person walks behind the gate of the Sachsenhausen Nazi death camp with the phrase ‘Arbeit macht frei’ (work sets you free) in Oranienburg, about 30 kilometres north of Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday, 25th January. On Thursday, 27th January, International Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp on 27th January, 1945. PICTURE: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber.
Michel spoke at an online event organised by the European Jewish Congress, which was also attended by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
The Commission – the EU’s executive branch – presented last year a new strategy to better tackle hate speech, raise awareness about Jewish life, protect places of worship and ensure that the Holocaust isn’t forgotten. According to Europe’s Fundamental Rights Agency, nine out of 10 Jews think antisemitism has increased in their country and is a serious problem.
With the wide circulation of false information about the Holocaust on the internet, European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor cited the big amount of time spent online during the coronavirus pandemic as one of the reasons for the rise in antisemitism.
He asked EU leaders to increase their efforts to connect with European youth to make them more aware of the Holocaust.
“We have to understand better their concerns and aspirations and speak to them in their language,” he said. “There has been a tsunami of lies about Jews, Israel and the Holocaust over the last couple of years, so we have to create new strategies to reach those who are consuming this information innocently.”
With France holding the EU’s rotating presidency, the European Jewish Congress’ ceremony focused on the Holocaust is in France, on the 80th anniversary of the Velodrome d’Hiver round-up, a mass arrest of Jews by French police in Paris in 1942.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he has taken action to dissolve groups promoting hatred and deplored that “falsifications of history are back.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations on Thursday will be held online this year again. A small ceremony, however, will take place at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp, where World War II Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people in occupied Poland. The memorial site was closed earlier in the pandemic but reopened in June.
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The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in November 2005 establishing the annual commemoration and chose 27th January, the day that Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945.
In all, about six million European Jews and millions of other people were killed by the Germans and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Some 1.5 million were children.
Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the resurgence of anti-Semitism at a service commemorating victims of the Nazi Holocaust, and he urged people around the world to “stand firm against hate and bigotry anywhere and everywhere.”
The UN chief said at the service on Tuesday night that he was alarmed to learn recently that barely half of adults worldwide have heard of the Holocaust, which saw the murder of six million Jews, comprising one-third of the Jewish people, and millions of others during World War II. He said the lack of knowledge among the younger generations “is worse still.”
“Our response to ignorance must be education,” Guterres said. “Governments everywhere have a responsibility to teach about the horrors of the Holocaust.”
He spoke at the United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Service at Park East Synagogue on the eve of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, which was held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guterres said the rise in anti-Semitism – “the oldest form of hate and prejudice” – has seen new reports of physical attacks, verbal abuse, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, synagogues vandalised, and last week the hostage-taking of the rabbi and members of Beth Israel Congregation in Colleyville, Texas.
Around the world, Guterres said, Jewish boys are warned not to wear a kippa, the skullcap worn by observant Jews, in public “for fear of being assaulted,” and there are conspiracy theories devolving into “heinous antisemitic tropes” and “deeply disturbing attempts to deny, distort or minimise the Holocaust,” especially on the internet.
He welcomed the 20th January adoption by the 193-member UN General Assembly of a resolution condemning a denial of the Holocaust and urging all nations and social media companies “to take active measures to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial or distortion.”
