Enlarge image
Holocaust survivors in video clip
Photo:
Greg Schneider/AP
Sirens wailed nationwide for two minutes in the morning, cars stopped on the streets: In Israel, the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were commemorated.
Internationally, survivors from different countries called for commemoration in a video message in different languages on the Yom Ha Shoah Holocaust Remembrance Day.
With 100 words, 100 survivors warn against hatred and indifference in English, Hebrew, German, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and other languages.
"We must remember the past or it will become our future," the survivors demand in the clip initiated by the Claims Conference.
The organization represents the claims of Holocaust survivors against Germany.
Since the war in Ukraine, the Claims Conference has been organizing the transport of survivors, who are often very old and in poor health, from the crisis area.
Three of them, Galina Abramova, Tetyana Zhuraleva and Larysa Dzuenko, are among the contributors to the video.
They now live in Frankfurt am Main in a retirement home.
"The survivor's call is a reminder that we don't have to be bystanders," Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference, said in a statement.
Bärbel Bas takes part in commemorations in Israel
In Israel, a commemoration event was held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, which was also attended by the President of the Bundestag, Bärbel Bas.
The politician laid a wreath on behalf of the Bundestag on Thursday.
During her current three-day visit to Israel, she was the first high-ranking representative from Germany to attend a ceremony in parliament at which the names of victims of the Holocaust were read out.
Bas also lit a candle in memory of the Jewess Irma Nathan, who was deported from her hometown of Duisburg 80 years ago.
Nathan was murdered by the Nazis in 1942.
Her husband and two children were also killed by the Nazis.
The German National Socialists and their accomplices murdered a total of six million Jews during World War II.
At the official opening ceremony to commemorate Yad Vashem on Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett emphasized the uniqueness of the Holocaust.
"Even the worst wars today are not the Holocaust and are not comparable to the Holocaust," he said.
"The Nazis sought to hunt down all Jews and exterminate every single one of them."
100 Holocaust survivors have immigrated from Ukraine since the start of the war
According to official figures, 161,400 Holocaust survivors are still living in Israel.
The average age is 85.5 years, it said.
More than 1000 affected are older than 100 years.
According to the Jewish Claims Conference, around 100 Holocaust survivors have immigrated to Israel from Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
In addition, around 70 people affected were brought to Germany from Ukraine with the help of the organization.
The Claims Conference, with its headquarters in New York, is committed to material compensation for those affected.
According to Israeli information, 15.2 million Jews lived worldwide at the end of 2020, 6.9 million of them in Israel.
The second largest Jewish community with six million was in the USA.
At that time, 118,000 Jews lived in Germany.
According to the information, there are still fewer Jews worldwide than before the Second World War.
At that time it was 16.6 million, it said.
apr/dpa
