Ceremony commemorates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, honors Albanians who saved Jews from the Holocaust
TIRANA, Jan. 27 – Albanian government officials have organized a ceremony to honor the memory of Holocaust victims on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Government ministers, members of the diplomatic corps and representatives of the religious communities and the civil society took part in the ceremony organized by Albania’s government and the UNDP.
Israeli Ambassador to Albania David Cohen said his country highly appreciated Albanians’ role to protect Jews during World War II.
Albania was the only country in Europe to have more Jews at the end of WWII than the beginning. Albanians hosted and protected many Jewish refugees from the Nazis, hiding the Jews among the local population, most of whom were Muslims.
Such tolerance in Albania becomes a good example at a time the world is engulfed in sectarian and religious violence, participants at the ceremony said.
An exhibition on Albanians assisting Jews opened for a week at the National Museum.
Albania has a prestigious special place at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is not in the map of the countries from where Jews were taken to the infamous Auschwitz camp. Officials at the event said Albanians were proud of their history and behavior during WWII. Seventy years ago the Soviet army entered Auschwitz, finding piles of corpses and prisoners close to death.
Many European leaders attended commemorations on the anniversary of the death camp’s liberation. The participants gathered under an enormous tent covering the gate and railroad tracks of Birkenau, a part of the vast Auschwitz-Birkenau complex where Jews, Roma and others were transported by train and murdered in gas chambers.
It is located near the Polish village of Brzezinka, which during the war belonged to a large section of Poland that was under German occupation.
Before going to Poland for the ceremonies, German President Joachim Gauck told the Parliament in Berlin that the lessons of the crimes of Auschwitz were “woven into the texture of our national identity.”
At the United Nations, commemorations planned for Tuesday, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, were canceled because of a snowstorm in New York.
