The first Forum was held in 2005 in Kraków, Poland, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. More than 20 official delegates attended the event. Delegates in attendance were led by their heads of state, among them was the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, President of Israel Moshe Katsav, President of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski, and Vice President of the United States of America Richard Cheney. The first World Forum received widespread media coverage.[1][2]
"The World Holocaust Forum Declaration", was adopted at the end of the second Forum. The declaration calls for preserving memories about the tragic events of World War II and uniting efforts in the fight against xenophobia, antisemitism and international terrorism.[4]
The next Holocaust Remembrance Day was held on January 24, 2012 at the European Parliament building in Brussels, under the patronage of the European Parliament President.[5] This event was timed to 70 years since the Wannsee Conference and 50 years since the end of the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Among the guests of this event were the President of the European ParliamentMartin Schulz, Israel's Minister for Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Yuli Edelstein, as well as many other European officials and ambassadors.[6]
Commemorative events for International Holocaust Remembrance Day were also held at the European Parliament in 2013 and 2014. Notably, in 2013,[7] President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz declared 'International Holocaust Remembrance Day' as an official annual event for the European Parliament.
Third World Holocaust Forum
The third Forum took place on January 27, 2010 in Kraków, Poland. This was dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The theme of the event was to preserve memories of the events of World War II, create connections between the past and the future, and prevent any recurrence of the tragedies of the past. President of the European Jewish CongressViatcheslav Moshe Kantor was the leader and organizer of the project.[8]
The Forum was the first in a long list of commemorative events planned in 2010 to observe the 65th anniversary of victory in World War II. The Forum was a starting point of political significance meant to attract the attention of the global community and remind the public of the unparalleled united struggle by members of the Allied coalition against fascism and the decisive role of the Soviet Union in Europe's liberation.
U.S. President Barack Obama[11] and President of FranceNicolas Sarkozy[12] sent messages to the Forum. Both of their addresses called for the world community to always remember the tragedies of the past and suggested that memory should factor into policy.
The main result of the Forum was an announcement of the initiative to establish a new special educational and research institution, a 'Pan-European University of Global Security and Tolerance.' The key objective of the new organisation will be to assist the international community in its struggle for global security in the face of challenges posed by extremism. The University will be focused on arranging cross-cultural educational and instructional programs designed to harmonize the development of international cooperation and education.[13] 8.01.2010]
On January 26–27, 2015, the fourth International "Let My People Live!" Forum was held in Prague and Terezín (Czech Republic) marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.[14] Several hundred distinguished guests — including heads of state, political leaders, members of parliament, diplomats, scholars and public figures from many countries; one of few surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau liberators Leonty Brandt; former prisoners of the concentration camps and Holocaust survivors — were in attendance.
The two-day event consisted of two major parts: the Forum of World Civil Society held at Prague Castle, and the commemorative ceremony in Terezín. It focused on remembering the past and reflecting on the present at a time when rising anti-Semitism and intolerance threaten the survival of Jewish communities in Europe and the security of Europe as a whole.
The Forum, organised by the European Jewish Congress and the World Holocaust Forum Foundation with the European Parliament and its President Martin Schulz, was attended by over 900 guests, including 30 official delegations and representatives of parliaments, European heads of state and international celebrities, experts and scholars, who gathered together at Prague Castle to participate in three discussion panels focused on anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and religious radicalism.
Well-known U.S. human rights activist Abraham Foxman, historian and Yale University professor Timothy David Snyder, French writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, head of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Cemil Çiçek, President of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania Valeriu Zgonea and other preeminent individuals attended the Forum's first day. Russia was represented by Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Ilyas Umakhanov and President of the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations Vladimir Yakunin.
On January 27, 2015, the Czech President Miloš Zeman hosted the final session of the Forum and an official ceremony to commemorate the Holocaust's victims. The National Philharmonic of Russia, which consisted of 98 musicians under the direction of Vladimir Spivakov, performed the Yellow Stars concerto for orchestra by Isaac Schwartz accompanied by a video about the Holocaust history. After the online minute of silence linking three other concentration camps, guests were invited to participate in the commemorative ceremony in Theresienstadt,[15] a concentration camp that served as a transit station on the way to other death camps. Theresienstadt inmates included many musicians, composers, cartoonists and poets, who maintained their art by publishing 'Vedem Magazine'. World-famous cantor Joseph Malovany and Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley performed during the ceremony.
At the conclusion of the fourth International Holocaust Forum, participants adopted a declaration to combat anti-Semitism and hate crimes.[16]
The fifth World Holocaust Forum was held on January 23–24, 2020 in Jerusalem, under the title “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism.” The forum was attended by 49 high-level delegations.[17] The organizer and initiator of the Forum was the President of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation and President of the European Jewish Congress, Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, in cooperation with Yad Vashem, under the auspices of the President of the State of Israel, Reuven Rivlin.[18]
Among the leaders who took part in the event were: President of Russia Vladimir Putin, Vice President of the United States Mike Pence, President of France Emmanuel Macron, President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of Italy Sergio Mattarella, King of The Netherlands Willem-Alexander, President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen, his Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, leaders from Albania, Armenia, Australia, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the representative of the Holy See, Cardinal Kurt Koch.[18][19]
Polish speaking slot
Polish President Andrzej Duda refused to participate in the event because he was not given the opportunity to speak.[20] He criticized the event for giving the speaking slot to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has in recent weeks criticized Poland with regard to its WWII record.[21] President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania endorsed President Duda's position and also withdrew from the summit.[21]Yad Vashem, who co-hosted the event, explained in a January 7, 2020 press release that a Polish speaker was not considered necessary as “…it is especially appropriate that the leaders addressing this event represent the four main powers of the Allied forces, which liberated Europe and the world from the murderous tyranny of Nazi Germany.”[22]
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the survivors; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the future. Yad Vashem's vision, as stated on its website, is: "To lead the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, and to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event to every person in Israel, to the Jewish people, and to every significant and relevant audience worldwide."
Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah, known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah and in English as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in that period. In Israel, it is a national memorial day. The first official commemorations took place in 1951, and the observance of the day was anchored in a law passed by the Knesset in 1959. It is held on the 27th of Nisan, unless the 27th would be adjacent to the Jewish Sabbath, in which case the date is shifted by a day.
The Auschwitz Album is a photographic record of the Holocaust during the Second World War. It and the Sonderkommando photographs are among the small number of visual documents that show the operations of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the German extermination camp in occupied Poland.
A Holocaust memorial day or Holocaust remembrance day is an annual observance to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews and of millions of other Holocaust victims by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Many countries, primarily in Europe, have designated national dates of commemoration. In 2005, the United Nations instituted an international observance, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The March of the Living is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day observed in the Jewish calendar, thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex built during World War II.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the genocide of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, an attempt to implement its "final solution" to the Jewish question. 27 January was chosen to commemorate the date when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army in 1945.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) was founded in 1986. It is based in Brussels, with offices in Paris, Strasbourg, Berlin and Budapest. It is a representative body of democratically elected European Jewish communities throughout Europe.
Maria Kotarba was a courier in the Polish resistance movement, smuggling clandestine messages and supplies among the local partisan groups. She was arrested, tortured and interrogated by the Gestapo as a political prisoner before being imprisoned in Tarnów and then deported to Auschwitz on 6 January 1943. Maria Kotarba was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem on 18 September 2005 for risking her life to save the lives of Jewish prisoners in two Nazi concentration camps.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a museum on the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland.
Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, businessman and philanthropist, is said to be the 630th richest person in the world. The Sunday Times Rich List estimated his wealth at £3.488 billion in 2020.
The European Jewish Fund (EJF) is an international non-governmental organisation that coordinates and supports programmes and events aimed at improving interreligious and interethnic relations, reinforcing Jewish identity, counteracting assimilation, promoting tolerance and reconciliation in Europe, fighting against xenophobia, extremism and antisemitism, and preserving the memory of the Holocaust. The EJF was established in 2006 on the initiative of Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, who is President of the European Jewish Congress and EJF Chairman. Ariella Woitchik is EJF Secretary General.
Dina Porat is an Israeli historian. She is professor emeritus of modern Jewish history at the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University and the chief historian of Yad Vashem.
Yehuda Bacon is an Israeli artist who survived the Holocaust.
Moshe Ha-Elion, also written Moshe Haelion, Moshe 'Ha-Elion, Moshé Ha-Elion, Moshé 'Ha-Elion, Moshé Haelyon, was a Holocaust survivor and writer. He survived Auschwitz, the death march, Mauthausen, Melk, and Ebensee. He is the author of a memoir, מיצרי שאול, originally written in Hebrew and translated into English as The Straits of Hell: The chronicle of a Salonikan Jew in the Nazi extermination camps Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Melk, Ebensee. He wrote three poems in Ladino based on his experience in the concentration camps and the death march: "La djovenika al lager", "Komo komian el pan", and "En marcha de la muerte", published in Ladino and Hebrew under the title En los Kampos de la Muerte. Moshe Ha-Elion translated Homer's Odyssey into Ladino. He lived in Israel. He had two children, six grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.
Bat-Sheva Dagan is a Polish-Israeli Holocaust survivor, educator, author, and speaker. Born in Łódź, Poland, she was incarcerated in a ghetto in Radom with her parents and two sisters in 1940. After her parents and a sister were deported and murdered in Treblinka in August 1942, she escaped to Germany, but was discovered, imprisoned, and deported to Auschwitz in May 1943. After spending 20 months in Auschwitz, she survived two death marches and was liberated by British troops in May 1945. She was the only survivor of her family. She and her husband settled in Israel, where she taught kindergarten and later obtained degrees in educational counseling and psychology. She went on to author books, poems, and songs for children and young adults on Holocaust themes, and developed psychological and pedagogical methods for teaching the Holocaust to children. She is considered a pioneer in children's Holocaust education.
Kalman Sultanik was a prominent Zionist figure who was active in numerous Jewish and Zionist organizations throughout his life. He was a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, served on the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Israel and became vice president of the World Jewish Congress as well as chairman of the World Zionist Organization American Section. He founded the Jerusalem Confederation House and led the World Confederation of United Zionists for decades. Sultanik was also active in assisting the Polish community of Holocaust survivors.
The Holocaust Museum of Oporto is a Holocaust museum founded in 2021.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation (ABMF) was founded in New York, USA, in 2012 as a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the preservation of the original artifacts and grounds of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp KL Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau, supervised by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland.
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