October 12, 2005
A group of Russian teachers is to be trained to teach the history of the Holocaust, Vyacheslav Kantor, chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) and president of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation, said at a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday. The teachers would receive their training at Yad Vashem, Kantor said. During the January 2005 commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it was decided to launch a pan-European Holocaust education program that would be adapted to each country. "The Holocaust and its lessons remain an important instrument of influencing public opinion", the EJC chairman pointed out. He said that a forum would be held in the Ukrainian capital Kiev next year to commemorate the Babi Iar massacre of Jews in 1941. Kantor also officially announced his candidacy for the post of president of the Russian Jewish Congress. An election will be held in November. The incumbent president is Vladimir Slutsker.
