UN office in Nairobi honours victims of Holocaust with solemn commemoration
About 500 people gathered at the United Nations Office at Nairobi today to mark the first International Day of Commemoration in honour of the 6 million Holocaust victims.
Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of the UN Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), opened the sombre ceremony with a message of remembrance from Secretary-General Kofi Annan and urged everyone to renew their commitment to uphold the principles of the United Nations Charter. The Charter, she stressed, was founded on principles of “peace, freedom, democracy and equal rights for all.”
Israel’s Ambassador to Kenya, Emanuel Seri, led the participants in a poignant Jewish prayer and said people must not forget that a campaign of racial hatred and genocide, begun with hatred speech and incitement, ended with the murder of millions of Jewish people.
The UN Information Centre in Nairobi organized the event, which commemorates the day in 1945 that the Auschwitz concentration camp fell to Allied Forces. Last fall, the General Assembly adopted a resolution designating the day as the International Day of Commemoration and agreed to reject “any denial of the Holocaust as an historic even, either full or in part.”
An exhibition of contemporary photographs depicting the persecution of Jews and other minorities during the years of the Third Reich was on display in the conference room. The event drew members of Kenya’s Jewish community, diplomats, UN staff and school children engaged in a Model United Nations.
German Ambassador Bernd Braun stressed the importance of finding new ways to keep the victims’ memories alive as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles. “And to continue asking ourselves how such crimes could ever have been committed. Each generation must define its own answers to this question,” he added.
At UN headquarters today, senior UN officials joined with survivors in a moving ceremony before a packed General Assembly Hall. The gathering culminated a weeklong series of events in at the world body’s main premises in New York City.