75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp

[Solomon2]

3 out of 4 of my grandparents died there, along with several aunts and uncles, countless cousins, and of course over 5.5 million other Jews.

I'll start this thread with stories from the anniversary "gathering" in Israel - the Fifth World Holocaust Forum. It is the largest gathering of world leaders in Israel since the founding of the Jewish State:

Warning of Iran, PM tells Holocaust forum: We remember the world turned its back
Netanyahu condemns ‘tyrants of Tehran,’ says Jews have learned they can only rely on themselves for defense; Rivlin: ‘Racism and anti-Semitism is a malignant disease’
By TOI STAFF Today, 3:37 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech during the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem on January 23, 2020 (Abir SULTAN / POOL / AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday told Holocaust survivors and world leaders that the world turned its back on Jews during the Holocaust, teaching the Jewish people that under threat they can only rely on themselves.

Speaking at the World Holocaust Forum’s memorial to commemorate the 75th liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp at Yad Vashem, Netanyahu said the world was similarly failing to unify against Iran, which he charged was the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet.

“Israel is eternally grateful for the sacrifice made by the Allies. Without that sacrifice there would be no survivors today. But we also remember that some 80 years ago, when the Jewish people faced annihilation, the world turned its back on us,” Netanyahu said.

“The Jewish people have learned the lessons of the Holocaust: that we cannot take threats to annihilate us lightly; to confront threats when they are small; and above all, even though we greatly appreciate the help of our friends, to defend ourselves by ourselves,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister condemned the “tyrants of Tehran,” saying that he is “concerned” that world leaders have not created “a unified stance against the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet.”

“Israel thanks President Trump and Vice Present Mike Pence for confronting the tyrants of Tehran who threaten the stability of the Middle East and the entire world,” Netanyahu said. “I call on all governments to make any effort to confront Iran.”

Pence, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prince Charles and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier are also due to address the gathering. and other leaders were slated to speak at the ceremony, which brought 40-plus world leaders to Jerusalem.

President Reuven Rivlin thanked the world leaders in attendance “for your commitment to remembering the Shoah, for your commitment to the citizens of the world, to those who believe in the dignity of man.”

President Reuven Rivlin speaks during the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, 23 January 2020 (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)​

Rivlin said that democracy must not be taken for granted and that the Jewish people know that “if we do not remember then history can be repeated.”

Anti-Semitism “does not only stop with Jews. Racism and anti-Semitism is a malignant disease that dismantles peoples and countries, and no democracy and no society is immune to that,” Rivlin said.

Former chief rabbi and Holocaust survivor Israel Meir Lau and Yad Vashem’s chairman Avner Shalev were also set to speak, and survivors were to light memorial flames.

The event, headlined “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism,” is co-organized by the office of Rivlin, Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center and the World Holocaust Forum Foundation. It comes several days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.

 

[Solomon2]

Live feed of the forum.

 

[Solomon2]

Putin in Jerusalem, says almost half of Holocaust victims were Soviet
Taking up a rival WWII narrative, the Russian president continues to play down USSR's pre-war pact with Nazis; speaking during dedication ceremony of a monument honoring siege of Leningrad, Netanyahu echoed Putin's sentiments
Associated Press,Ynet|
Published: 01.23.20 , 13:04
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ventured into the charged battle over the rival historical narratives of World War II by claiming that 40% of Jewish Holocaust victims were Soviet.

• Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter

Putin is in Jerusalem for the largest-ever gathering focused on commemorating the Holocaust. But it has been marred by the historical squabbles.
Speaking during a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin on Thursday, the Russian leader said the Red Army not only freed the Auschwitz death camp but also “made a decisive contribution to victory over the Nazis,” he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu
(Photo: Amit Shaabi)

“The Soviet people and the Russian people suffered greatly during the war, when it comes to the Holocaust, some 40% of the Jews killed there were from the Soviet Union.”

It was the latest chapter in a bitter dispute over Soviet actions in World War II. Putin has been leading a campaign to play down the Soviet Union's pre-war pact with the Nazis and focus instead on its role in defeating them.

Of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis, historians say about 1 million were Soviet. Putin appeared to be adding an additional 1.5 million Jewish victims from eastern European areas occupied by the Soviets under their pact with the Nazis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Reuven Rivlin
(Photo: Flash 90)

Poland's president skipped Thursday's event to protest the central role given to Putin. Poland, which has been criticized for its own wartime revisionism, accuses Putin of unfairly blaming it for the war's outbreak.

The former KGB man also called for an end of anti-Semitism. "Now you [Rivlin] said we don't know where anti-Semitism ends, unfortunately, we know that the end is in Auschwitz," said Putin. "One must pay attention and not let this happen ever again."

Putin, on a brief visit, also attended a dedication ceremony of a monument honoring the nearly 900-day Nazi siege of the Soviet city of Leningrad, the Russian leader's hometown.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke during the ceremony, reiterated Putin’s sentiments praising the Soviet soldiers for “saving the world from a terrible tragedy.”
“The residue of pain has remained, what was lost, was lost forever,” he added.

 

[Solomon2]

Auschwitz: Prince Charles warns world leaders over 'hatred'

• 10 minutes ago

Related Topics

• The Holocaust

Image copyrightAFP

The Prince of Wales has warned "hatred and intolerance still lurk in the human heart", at an event in Israel marking 75 years since the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
During his speech in Jerusalem, he said lessons of the Holocaust are still "searingly relevant" and called on world leaders to be "fearless in confronting falsehoods" and violence.

About 40 leaders attended the event.

The Nazis murdered more than a million people at Auschwitz, most of them Jews.

Prince Charles delivered his call for action at the World Holocaust Forum being staged at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and US Vice-President Mike Pence were among those attending.

However, a decision by Poland's President Andrzej Duda not to join them threatened to overshadow the event.

'Ever-changing threats'
Prince Charles, on his first official trip to Israel and the occupied West Bank, told them that hatred and intolerance "tell new lies, adopt new disguises, and still seek new victims".

"All too often, language is used which turns disagreement into dehumanisation," he said.
"Words are used as badges of shame to mark others as enemies, to brand those who are different as somehow deviant.


Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES/MENAHEM KAHANAImage caption

The prince met Holocaust survivors George Shefi and Marta Wise at the Israel museum ahead of the forum

"All too often, virtue seems to be sought through verbal violence. All too often, real violence ensues, and acts of unspeakable cruelty are still perpetrated around the world against people for reasons of their religion, their race or their beliefs.

"Knowing, as we do, the darkness to which such behaviour leads, we must be vigilant in discerning these ever-changing threats; we must be fearless in confronting falsehoods and resolute in resisting words and acts of violence.

"And we must never rest in seeking to create mutual understanding and respect."

The focus, say the organisers, will be on fighting anti-Semitism today.

But some speeches - particularly those outside of the event - look set to go further; as Jerusalem bristles with presidents and princes in what officials say amounts to the biggest political gathering since Israel's founding.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already used the lead up to say the number one lesson from Auschwitz is stopping a nuclear armed Iran.

While the decision to give the podium to President Putin of Russia has sparked fury in Poland.

Its nationalist president Andrzej Duda is staying away in protest at not being invited to speak; accusing Mr Putin of distorting the history of the Holocaust and the war to attack his country.

Ahead of the event, the prince met survivors of the Holocaust, saw the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, and visited Israel's President Reuven Rivlin.

Mr Rivlin told the prince that Israel "deeply appreciates" his attendance at the gathering, which he said would help to "show that when we are united we can fight this phenomenon".

He also told the prince that "we still expect your mother to come" to Israel. The Queen has never visited the country during her 67-year reign.

To commemorate the visit, Charles was invited to plant an oak tree in the gardens of the president's official residence, Beit HaNassi.

During his two-day trip, Prince Charles is also likely to visit the grave of his grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, in Jerusalem's Church of St Mary Magdalene.

She was honoured by the Jewish people for hiding and saving the lives of Jews in Nazi-occupied Athens, Greece, during World War Two.

In his address on Thursday, Prince Charles spoke of his "immense pride" at the honour, saying he has "long drawn inspiration from the selfless actions of my dear grandmother".

 

[abdsilva]

3 out of 4 of my grandparents died there, along with several aunts and uncles, countless cousins, and of course over 5.5 million other Jews.

I'll start this thread with stories from the anniversary "gathering" in Israel - the Fifth World Holocaust Forum. It is the largest gathering of world leaders in Israel since the founding of the Jewish State:

Warning of Iran, PM tells Holocaust forum: We remember the world turned its back
Netanyahu condemns ‘tyrants of Tehran,’ says Jews have learned they can only rely on themselves for defense; Rivlin: ‘Racism and anti-Semitism is a malignant disease’
By TOI STAFF Today, 3:37 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech during the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem on January 23, 2020 (Abir SULTAN / POOL / AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday told Holocaust survivors and world leaders that the world turned its back on Jews during the Holocaust, teaching the Jewish people that under threat they can only rely on themselves.

Speaking at the World Holocaust Forum’s memorial to commemorate the 75th liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp at Yad Vashem, Netanyahu said the world was similarly failing to unify against Iran, which he charged was the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet.

“Israel is eternally grateful for the sacrifice made by the Allies. Without that sacrifice there would be no survivors today. But we also remember that some 80 years ago, when the Jewish people faced annihilation, the world turned its back on us,” Netanyahu said.

“The Jewish people have learned the lessons of the Holocaust: that we cannot take threats to annihilate us lightly; to confront threats when they are small; and above all, even though we greatly appreciate the help of our friends, to defend ourselves by ourselves,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister condemned the “tyrants of Tehran,” saying that he is “concerned” that world leaders have not created “a unified stance against the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet.”

“Israel thanks President Trump and Vice Present Mike Pence for confronting the tyrants of Tehran who threaten the stability of the Middle East and the entire world,” Netanyahu said. “I call on all governments to make any effort to confront Iran.”

Pence, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prince Charles and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier are also due to address the gathering. and other leaders were slated to speak at the ceremony, which brought 40-plus world leaders to Jerusalem.

President Reuven Rivlin thanked the world leaders in attendance “for your commitment to remembering the Shoah, for your commitment to the citizens of the world, to those who believe in the dignity of man.”

President Reuven Rivlin speaks during the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, 23 January 2020 (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)​

Rivlin said that democracy must not be taken for granted and that the Jewish people know that “if we do not remember then history can be repeated.”

Anti-Semitism “does not only stop with Jews. Racism and anti-Semitism is a malignant disease that dismantles peoples and countries, and no democracy and no society is immune to that,” Rivlin said.

Former chief rabbi and Holocaust survivor Israel Meir Lau and Yad Vashem’s chairman Avner Shalev were also set to speak, and survivors were to light memorial flames.

The event, headlined “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism,” is co-organized by the office of Rivlin, Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center and the World Holocaust Forum Foundation. It comes several days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.

now there is another conspiracy against jews brewing in middle east and south asia , israel should keep it in mind who are their real enemies .

 

[Solomon2]

Remarks by Vice President Pence at the Fifth World Holocaust Forum | Jerusalem, Israel
LAW & JUSTICE​

Issued on: January 23, 2020​

Yad Vashem
Jerusalem, Israel

3:24 P.M. IST

US Vice President Mike Pence delivers a speech at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem on January 23, 2020, to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. (Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP)​

VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: President Rivlin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Your Majesties, Presidents, Excellencies, honored survivors and distinguished guests: It is deeply humbling for me to stand before you today, on behalf of the American people, as we mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

On this occasion, here on Mount Herzl, we gather to fulfill a solemn obligation — an obligation of remembrance: to never allow the memory of those who died in the Holocaust to be forgotten by anyone, anywhere in the world.

The word “remember” appears no fewer than 169 times in the Hebrew Bible — for memory is the constant obligation of all generations.

And today we pause to remember what President Donald Trump rightly called the “dark stain on human history” — the greatest evil ever perpetuated by man against man in the long catalogue of human crime.

The faces of a million and a half children reduced to smoke under a silent sky for the crime of having a single Jewish grandparent. The night Elie Wiesel called “seven times sealed” consumed the faith of so many then, and challenges the faith of so many still.

Today we remember what happens when the powerless cry for help and the powerful refuse to answer.

The town’s name was Oświęcim. As part of their plan to destroy the very existence of Polish culture, the Nazis gave Polish towns German names. And this one they called Auschwitz.

When soldiers opened the gates of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found 7,000 half-starved, half-naked prisoners, hundreds of boxes of camp records that documented the greatest mass murder in history. Before the war was over, in its five years of existence, more than 1.1 million men, women, and children would perish at Auschwitz.

As my wife and I can attest firsthand, from this past year, one cannot walk the grounds of Auschwitz without being overcome with emotion and grief. One cannot see the piles of shoes, the gas chambers, the crematoriums, the lone boxcar facing the gate to the camp, and those grainy photographs of men, women, and children being sent to their deaths without asking: “How could they?”

Today we mourn with those who mourn and grieve with those who grieve. We remember the names and the faces and the promise of the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Today we also pay tribute to those who survived, who all these years have borne witness to that evil and have served mankind by their example. (Applause.)

And today we honor and remember the memory of all the Allied forces, including more than 2 million American soldiers, who left hearth and home, suffered appalling casualties, and freed a continent from the grip of tyranny.

And, finally, we pay tribute to the memory of those non-Jewish heroes who saved countless lives — those the people of Israel call the “righteous among the nations.”

In an age of indifference, they acted. In an age of fear, they showed courage. And their memory and their example should kindle anew the flame of our hearts to do the same in our time. (Applause.)

We must be prepared to stand as they did against the wave of their times. We must be prepared to confront and expose the vile tide of anti-Semitism that is fueling hate and violence all across the world. And we must stand together. (Applause.)

In that same spirit, we must also stand strong against the leading state purveyor of anti-Semitism, against the one government in the world that denies the Holocaust as a matter of state policy and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. The world must stand strong against the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Applause.)

And, finally, we must have the courage to recognize all the leaders and all the nations that are gathered here that, today, we have the responsibility and the power to ensure that what we remember here today can never happen again. (Applause.)

Mr. Prime Minister, as we honor and remember the 6 million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust, the world can only marvel at the faith and resilience of the Jewish people, who just three years after walking in the valley of the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes to reclaim a Jewish future and rebuild the Jewish State. (Applause.)

And I’m proud to say, as Vice President of the United States, that the American people have been with you every step of the way since 1948. (Applause.) And so we will remain.

As President Trump declared in his historic visit to Jerusalem, the bond between our two peoples is “woven together in the fabric of our hearts.” And so it shall always be. (Applause.)

Today we remember not simply the liberation of Auschwitz but also the triumph of freedom — a promise fulfilled, a people restored to their rightful place among the nations of the Earth. And we remember — we remember the long night of that past, the survivors and the faces of those we lost, the heroes who stood against those evil times. And today we gather nearly 50 nations strong, here in Jerusalem, to say with one voice: Never again. (Applause.)

Through pogroms, persecutions, and expulsions in the ghettos, and finally, even through the death camps, the Jewish people clung to an ancient promise that He would “never leave you or forsake you” and that he would leave this people to inherit the land that he swore to your ancestors that he would give them.

And so, today, as we bear witness to the strength and the resilience and the faith of the Jewish people, so too we bear witness to God’s faithfulness to the Jewish people. (Applause.)

May the memory of the martyrs be enshrined in the hearts of all humanity for all time.

May God bless the Jewish people, the State of Israel, the United States, and all the nations gathered here.

And may He who creates peace in the heavens create peace for us and for all the world.

Oseh shalom bimromav. Hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu. V’al kol Yisrael V’imru. Amen. (Applause.)

END

3:36 P.M. IST

 

[Solomon2]

Germany not immune to evil 75 years after Auschwitz liberation, Steinmeier says
Speaking at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, German President Steinmeier said his country should be judged by its commitment to fighting anti-Semitism. The evils of the Nazi era continue to exist today, he added.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier underscored Germany's responsibility to combat anti-Semitism in a historic speech on Thursday in Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center.

"I wish I could say that we Germans have learned from our history once and for all, but I cannot say that when hatred is spreading," Steinmeier said at the start of the World Holocaust Forum (WHF).

Steinmeier, who is the first German president ever to give a speech at Yad Vashem, was joined by other heads of state for the start of the WHF to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

"I stand before you and wish I could say that our remembrance has made us immune to evil," he noted.

"Yes, we Germans remember," he said. "But sometimes it seems as if we understand the past better than the present."




Watch video11:40
German president expresses sorrow for Holocaust
Evils of anti-Semitism 'appear today in a new guise'

The commemorations in Jerusalem come amid a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States, with Steinmeier warning that although the Nazi regime is gone, "the same evil" still remains in society.

"The evil spirits appear today in a new guise, presenting their anti-Semitic, their nationalistic, their authoritarian thinking as an answer for the future — as a new solution for the problems of our time," the German president said.

He described stories of Jewish children in Germany who are "spit on in the schoolyard." He also condemned the anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle last October where only a heavy wooden door prevented a right-wing extremist "from carrying out a bloodbath ... on Yom Kippur."

"Germany's historical responsibility will not expire," he emphasized. "We want to live up to it — and you should judge us on it."

Read more: 75 portraits of Holocaust survivors featured in new exhibition







Watch video02:53
Yad Vashem: Remembering the victims of the Holocaust
World leaders in Jerusalem for commemorationsOver 50 heads of state and government are in Jerusalem for the WHF, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and US Vice President Mike Pence.Around 100 Holocaust survivors are also taking part in the event, which includes prayers for the dead and the lighting of a memorial torch.It is the largest gathering of world leaders in Israeli history. The forum on Thursday is the first of several events leading up to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Red Army soldiers liberated the camp on January 27, 1945.An estimated 1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz before it was liberated. Over 6 million Jews — more than a third of the world's Jewish population at the time — were killed by the Nazis in gas chambers, ghettos and forced labor camps.




Watch video02:36
Dita Kraus: The librarian of Auschwitz
rs/sms (AFP, Reuters)

 

[Solomon2]

While not at the liberation forum in Israel, this event is clearly tied to it:

JANUARY 23, 2020 3:56 PM

Muslim World League Chief al-Issa Joins Holocaust Survivors in Historic Tribute at Auschwitz
by Algemeiner Staff

Mohammad al-Issa (center, with black robe), secretary-general of the Muslim World League, visits Auschwitz, Jan. 23, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Kacper Pempel.​

The head of the one of the world’s largest Muslim organizations paid an unprecedented visit to the site of the Auschwitz extermination camp on Thursday, where he participated in remembrance prayers for the Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

Dr. Muhammad al-Issa — the secretary-general of the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL) — joined with survivors of the Holocaust in paying his respects at the camp as the world prepares for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27.

“To be here, among the children of Holocaust survivors and members of the Jewish and Islamic communities, is both a sacred duty and a profound honor,” al-Issa said. “The unconscionable crimes to which we bear witness today are truly crimes against humanity. That is to say, a violation of us all, an affront to all of God’s children.”

Al-Issa has established the MWL as a leading Muslim partner for dialogue with Judaism and other faiths since he was appointed to take over the Saudi-backed organization in 2016.

In May 2018, al -Issa paid a public visit to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, where he strongly condemned Holocaust denial.

And in an extensive interview with The Algemeiner earlier that same year, he firmly rejected those who present the Islamic faith as a license to engage in sectarian persecution.

Doing so “negates the tradition of the Creator Almighty, who created His universe in such a way that it contains diversity and variety,” al-Issa said.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1220354825881366528
https://twitter.com/x/status/1220368267606470656

 

[Steyn]

What's funny is that Hitler who was either an atheist or a Christian did this oppression on Jews.

In response, Jews start oppressing Muslims in Palestine and hating them worldwide.

Sure have really messed up priorities. If anything they should be the last people to do oppression on anyone.

 

[Solomon2]

Remembering the Muslims murdered at Auschwitz
When the world acknowledges the Nazis' Muslim victims, it makes it harder for Muslims to deny the Holocaust -- and it corrects a critical historical narrative
JAN 26, 2020, 12:59 PM

A delegation of Muslim religious leaders at the gate leading to the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz, together with a Jewish group in what organizers called “the most senior Islamic leadership delegation" to visit the former Nazi death camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, January 23, 2020. (American Jewish Committee via AP)


Their names and numbers were Ismail (R9954) and Nasreddin (R9955), Mohammed (R9959) and Hassan (R9965). They were Soviet prisoners of war, captured on the eastern front.

In late February and early March 1942, they and several dozen other Muslims joined the thousands upon thousands of Abrahams and Sarahs, Isaacs and Rebeccas, Jacobs and Rachels, who together made up the 1.1 million men, women and children killed at the vast complex of Nazi concentration, labor, and extermination camps in rural Poland known as “Auschwitz.”


Jews, of course, were the principal victims of Auschwitz’s barbarity, making up nearly 90 percent of its vast death toll. Even that huge number was itself just a fraction of the six million Jews killed in the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jewish people, known as the Holocaust. When world leaders descend upon Auschwitz on January 27 for the 75th anniversary of its liberation by Soviet troops — the date chosen by the world community to commemorate the Holocaust — the names of martyrs they will recite will, justly and appropriately, be Jewish.

But if the goal of Holocaust remembrance is, at least in part, to counter Holocaust ignorance and denial — a phenomenon that can range from not knowing the basic facts of the Holocaust to rejecting its proven history to glorifying Hitler’s near-success in achieving his genocidal goal — then organizers of the Auschwitz memorial should consider including in their recitation the names of the Nazis’ Muslim victims, too.

Focusing on the small number of Muslim victims is not to obscure the role of Muslim perpetrators, such as the Bosnian troops of the SS’s infamous 13th Waffen Mountain Division. And citing Muslim victims as a way to counter Holocaust ignorance and denial is not because those are uniquely “Muslim problems” — to the contrary, these are cross-cultural, cross-ethnic, cross-national, cross-religion phenomena. Just last year, for example, 13% of Britons told pollsters they either believe the Holocaust was a hoax or the number of Jewish deaths greatly exaggerated. And a 2018 poll showed that 41% of Americans — and 66% of millennials — could not correctly say what Auschwitz was.

But that reality does not diminish the fact that Holocaust denial is particularly pronounced in many Muslim societies. Coupled with its first cousin – anti-Semitism – it is propounded by national leaders, like Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mohamed Mahathir and the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, and by religious leaders, like the influential Qatar-based cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. In Arab and broader Muslim popular culture and social media, the phenomena of Holocaust ignorance, denial, and celebration are, regrettably, commonplace.

Thankfully, there is some important good news. A growing chorus of Muslim leaders has been increasingly active in countering this pernicious hate, speaking out in support of tolerance and against Holocaust rejectionism. These range from the king of Morocco, who has publicly declared the Holocaust to be “one of the most tragic chapters of modern history,” to the secretary-general of the Saudi-based Muslim World League, who denounced Holocaust denial and is now making his own high-profile visit to Auschwitz.

Including Muslim victims of Auschwitz alongside the nearly million Jewish victims and the thousands of Christian victims will help bring Muslims into this critical historical narrative and contribute to this positive trend. After all, while the Holocaust was an overwhelmingly Jewish tragedy, the Nazi quest for global domination based on a warped sense of racial supremacy continues to animate annihilationist rhetoric and apocalyptic strategies one hears from extremists in Muslim societies. And the genocide the Nazis attempted to perpetrate on the Jewish people has, regrettably, been replicated since then by genocidal attempts to wipe out millions of other innocents, many of whom have themselves been Muslim, from the Kurds of northern Iraq to the Rohingya of Myanmar.

The Muslims who died at Auschwitz may not have been killed because of their faith but their faith did not exempt them from their fate. Remembering them — Ismail Mamatdzanon, Nasreddin Tadzubajev, Mohammed Sultanov, Hassan Mamedov and their co-religionists — is a small step that could reverberate far beyond the killing fields of the Polish countryside.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Satloff has served since 1993 as executive director of The Washington Institute.