André Gattolin at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day

André Gattolin at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day

On the 27th of January 1945, soldiers of the Red Army of the USSR liberated the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, putting an end to one of the most dramatic pages of the contemporary history. Asserting the superiority of the Arian race, millions of Jews, homosexuals, Roma, Sinti, political dissidents, women, children and disabled people were killed and deprived of their fundamental human rights during the Second World War.

In order to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and prevent a similar tragedy from happening again, the General Assembly of the United Nations established in 2005 the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls on the 27th of January of each year.

At the two-day conference held in Krakow on the 20th and 21st of January, André Gattolin, French Senate Vice-Chair of the European Affairs Committee and an honorary member of the Global Committee for the Rule of Law, expressed his profound concern on the increase of anti-Semitism attacks around Europe and France.

In a society where discrimination, hatred, oppression and racism prevail, the International Holocaust Memorial Day represents not only an opportunity for remembering the past and retracing the events that deeply shocked the whole world but also a moment for present and future generations to reflect and avoid the recurrence of such tragic atrocities.

Federica Donati

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