As the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, top European officials said more action had to be taken to effectively combat anti-Semitism.
Recent studies have shown that a growing number of Jews living in European countries do not see their future in the continent due to the increase in anti-Semitism, and many of them conceal their religious affiliation so as not to become a target for verbal and physical assaults.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has pledged to intensify the fight against anti-Semitism, terrorism and xenophobia, and to defend Jewish life in Europe.
"The Holocaust and World War II have defined Europe's modern history like no other event. Our European Union was founded on the desire to say 'never again,'" Mogherini said in a statement.
"The Nazi regime and its allies tried to destroy Europe's diversity – by killing Jews, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, people with disabilities, everyone who did not share the Nazi ideology. After this tragedy – the greatest tragedy in human history – we embraced our diversity and made it the foundation of our Union.
"But still, 70 years later, anti-Semitism, discrimination and hate speech are again on the rise in Europe," she said, noting that "the best antidote against this madness is knowledge. It is essential that our children learn about the Shoah and visit Auschwitz and other concentration camps, to understand what happened and never let it happen again.
"It is even more important that Jewish culture remains the integral part of our shared European culture it always has been. The history of our European Union is linked to the history of the Jewish people. The European Union could not exist without the memory of the Shoah, and it could not exist without European Jews.
"The words we say on Holocaust Remembrance Day must translate into policies for every other day. And every day we work with our partners to fight terrorism, antisemitism, xenophobia and hate speech all across our region. We work to preserve not just the memory of the Holocaust, but our continent's cultural and religious diversity. The only way to honor the memory of the Holocaust is to turn remembrance into the promise of a better future," the statement concluded.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that the fight against anti-Semitism and xenophobia must be a daily undertaking. Merkel noted that as the number of Holocaust survivors is diminishing over time, there is a need to strengthen and change the concept of Holocaust memorial work.
"The voice of the witnesses must be preserved and included in the educational work of the memorial sites," she suggested.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Saturday that the world's nations have a responsibility to denounce and counter racism and violence.
"Too often, vile views are moving from the margins to the mainstream of societies and politics. Whenever and wherever humanity's values are abandoned, we are all at risk. All of us have a responsibility to quickly, clearly and decisively resist racism and violence. Through education and understanding, we can build a future of dignity, human rights and peaceful coexistence for all," he said.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Raad al-Hussein was quoted by the Sofia Globe news website as saying, "The sadistic brutality of the atrocities inflicted by the Nazi regime on Jews, Roma, Slavs, disabled people, political dissidents, homosexuals and others was nourished by layer upon layer of propaganda, falsifications and incitement to hatred. One after another, their rights were refused, and finally, even their humanity was denied.
"As we honor the victims of the Holocaust, we must also acknowledge the need to prevent the recurrence of anti-Semitism and all forms of racial and religious hatred and discrimination today. We must recognize that only if we regard each other as fully equal in dignity and rights will we be able to come together to overcome the many challenges facing humanity," he said.
Audrey Azoulay , director of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, an agency accused of showing gross anti-Israel bias, said International Holocaust Remembrance Day should be viewed as a call to bolster the international community's commitment to peace.
"Combating anti-Semitism, in whatever form is at the heart of this fight, in which everyone has a role to play. We can build up awareness against forgetting, denial, historical revisionism, relativization of crimes and the return of stereotypes that fuel hatred. We can oppose the manipulation of facts by speaking the truth," she said.
