Today, the European Commission is becoming a permanent international partner to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The participation of the EU in this international body will allow closer cooperation on combating Holocaust denial and preventing racism, xenophobia and antisemitism.
This is a direct follow-up to President Juncker’s call for closer international cooperation in his statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day, this 27 January, as well as the European Parliament’s resolution on combating Antisemitism of June 2017.
First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said: “With a decreasing number of Holocaust survivors and at a time when Antisemitism is on the rise, we need to foster the memory of the darkest chapter in our history. The EU joining the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance will help promote understanding so that future generations will heed the lessons of our past.”
Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vera Jourová added: “This commitment is part of our wider effort to fight against Antisemitism. Our involvement in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has special importance at a time when Holocaust denial is spreading.”
Today, at the plenary meeting of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the EU Coordinator on Combatting Antisemitism will officially accept the role. As a result, the Commission will represent the EU in this body, which provides expertise on Holocaust denial, distortion or Antisemitism.
It will give the Commission access to the expertise of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Groups on education, particularly on key challenges like multi-cultural and multi-religious classrooms and inclusive remembrance. More information on the Commission’s work on combatting Antisemitism can be found online here.
Hundreds residents of the German city of Oldenburg marched on Sunday to express their solidarity with the Jewish community following an arson attack at the local synagogue on Friday.
An unknown perpetrator hurled a Molotov cocktail against the door of the synagogue in this city of northern Germany. No one was injured in the attack as caretakers from a neighboring cultural center were quickly able to extinguish the fire, which damaged the door to the place of worship.
Claire Schaub-Moore, chairwoman of the Jewish community in Oldenburg thanked the residents for their support. “We are deeply impressed by this solidarity. We feel this strength and it is much greater than what happened on our doorstep, on the doorstep of the synagogue,” she said.
Speaking to the crowd, the city’s Mayor Jürgen Krogman called thge attack against the synagogue “nothing other than attempted murder, terror.”
The leader of Lower-Saxony’s parliament, Hanna Naber, an Oldenburg resident herself, told demonstrators, “We are renewing the promise with which the German Federal Republic was founded: Never again!.”
In a post on X German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called the act a “disgusting, inhumane attack on Oldenburg’s Jewish men and women.”
Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany,said: “We will not be intimidated. Jewish life belongs to our country, to Germany. Those who refuse to accept that fact must bear all legal consequences for their actions.”
Residents of German city march in solidarity with Jewish community following attack on synagogue
