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Holocaust Remembrance and Education

United Nations: In a resolution co-sponsored by 104 Member States, the United Nations General Assembly des-ignated January 27 as Holocaust Re-membrance Day, drawing immediate praise from Secretary General Kofi An-nan, who said the United Nations would do its part to keep the memory alive in a bid to prevent future acts of genocide .

On January 27 2006, the international day of Ho-locaust commemoration, the WJC and affiliated communities participated in events throughout the world.

	Rabbi Henry I. Sobel

Brazil: In Sao Paulo, Brazil, the In-ternational Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Ho-locaust was observed with special Sab-bath Services at Congregação Israelita Paulista, the largest synagogue in Latin America. During the service Rabbi Henry I. Sobel, Chairman of the Inter-religious Relations Department of the Latin American Jewish Congress(LAJC) explained the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust and emphasized the cen-trality of the State of Israel in the hearts of Jews all over the world. President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ad-dressed the congregation, saying that the day was one of com-memoration for all of humanity, and pledging the Brazilian government’s commitment to fight anti-Semitism.

Greece: European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Pierre Besnainou, EJC Secretary-General Serge Cwajgenbaum and WJC Policy Council Chairman Is-rael Singer, were in Athens as the Greek government took part in the Greek Na-tional Remembrance Day for Jewish-Greek Martyrs and Heroes of the Ho-locaust held in Athens, in cooperation with the Central Board of Jewish Com-munities in Greece. Greek President Karolos Papoulias hosted the event and Simone Veil, Auschwitz survivor and President of the French “Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holocaust,” was the guest of honor. The ceremony was also attended by Jewish community President Moses Constantinis, President of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community, David Saltiel, and former Jewish com-munity President Nissim Mais.

The small Jewish community of Thessaloniki (Salonika) paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust in their city as well. Beginning in 1942, the city’s Jewish community was almost entirely decimated through deportations to Auschwitz, with 94 percent of the city’s Jews murdered.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy sent a message to the ceremony in Thessaloniki - his grandfather was a Greek Sephardic Jew who immigrated to France from the city at the begin-ning of the 20th century. The message read in part, “We owe it to all those destroyed lives to remember them as I owe it to my grandfather’s family.”

Bad Arolsen

The world’s largest archive about Nazi Germany, the International Trac-ing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, will soon be opened to historians who will for the first time gain access to the files, which contain personal details on more than 17 million people who went through the concentration camp and slave labor system. The decision was taken at a meeting of diplomats from the eleven countries that are sig-natories to the convention governing the ITS. The WJC actively negotiated for the opening of the archive, which is managed by the International Committee of the Red Cross and fi-nanced by the German government.

Singer Honored for Restitution Work

At its 84th annual dinner, the Haredi Jewish communal organization Agudath Israel of America (Agudah) honored WJC Policy Council Chairman Israel Singer with its Elimelech Tress Award for his achievements in Holocaust restitution and in countering Holocaust revisionism. The dinner was attended by more than 1,500 supporters of Agudah and was addressed by the President of the Council of Torah Sages, Rabbi Yaakov Perlow. Singer was introduced by a video message from New York State Governor George Pataki, who praised Singer as “my partner,” in accomplishments on behalf of the Jewish people.