The one-day summit, which was co-hosted with the World Jewish Congress at the UN in Geneva, concluded on Wednesday evening with a Holocaust Memorial in Paroisse de l’Oratoire in the old city of Geneva with a concert by French pianist François Dumont. Among the speakers in the evening were Bishop Teemu Laajasalo from the Diocese of Helsinki of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the German Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikola Gillhoff.
On January 24, 2023 ECI’s Communications Officer Rebeka Goba hosted a unique webinar together with young social media influencer Dov Forman who with his 99-year-old great-grandmother Lily Ebert who survived the Holocaust, have already reached over one billion viewers on TikTok and other social media platforms with video clips about the Holocaust.
The webinar was also joined by German MEP Sergey Lagodinsky and EU Coordinator on combating antisemitism, Katharina von Schnurbein who shared what the European Union is doing to fight antisemitism today and discussed together how we can keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and what can be done to fight Holocaust denial and distortion.
A conference “80th Anniversary Symposium of the Wannsee Conference “The Contemporary Church and Antisemitism Today: What must we do?” was held in Berlin in January on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, in a joint venture between ECI and the Evangelical-Protestant Church of Germany (EKD). The discussions dealt with different aspects of antisemitism and how we can fight against it today. The Memorial service in the evening of was held in the Französischer Dom in Berlin, with classical music by the Diplomatic String Quartet Berlin.
During the event statements were given by the Secretary-General of the World Evangelical Alliance, Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, the Chair of the Pentecostal Commission on Religious Liberty, Dr Arto Hämäläinen, EU Coordinator in combating antisemitism, Katharina von Schnurbein, the Federal Commissioner for Jewish life in Germany and the fight against antisemitism, Dr Felix Klein, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby (video), the President of the European Conference of Rabbis, Chief Rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt (video), the Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Vice-President of the German parliament, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, Reverend Johnnie Moore and Dr Christian Stäblein from EKD, apart from ECI’s Tomas Sandell and Gregory Lafitte.
The European Coalition for Israel marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day with an online Holocaust Memorial on Wednesday January 27th 2021 at 19.30 CET, featuring global church leaders and with a teaching webinar on Sunday January 31st at 16.00 CET on how we can build resilience against the current rise of antisemitism.
Similar to previous years, local churches were encouraged to observe Holocaust Remembrance Day on the Sunday following January 27th, this year on Sunday 31st, by incorporating elements of remembrance into their Sunday service.
This year the Holocaust Remembrance week included for the first time also local churches in the US as the International Coalition for Israel – USA teamed up with ECI to honour the victims of the Holocaust. Church leaders from Asia and Africa were also expected to participate in the various webinars and live events.
ECI cooperated again with New Zealand based videographer Perry Trotter from the Holocaust and antisemitism Foundation. He made his online exhibition of Holocaust survivor stories available for local churches. Many churches have in the past included a 3-minute video testimony from a Holocaust survivor with a moment of silence or a candle-lighting ceremony in remembrance of the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. Every year we encourage church leaders to observe the Holocaust Memorial Day on the Sunday following January 27th.
In 2005, European Coalition for Israel initiated and hosted the first Holocaust Remembrance Day event in the European Parliament. Today, this event is an official EU event under the patronage of the President of the European Parliament. Each year we provide online educational resources to help faith communities and civil society organizations organize their own Holocaust Remembrance events.
For several consecutive years ECI and the Holocaust and antisemitism Foundation have been joining forces to raise awareness about the horrors of the Holocaust through an online education campaign with personal testimonies from Holocaust survivors.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 27th of January, is an international memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide that resulted in the annihilation of 6 million Jews. It was designated by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 on the first of November 2005. The resolution came after a special session was held earlier that year on the 24 of January 2005 during which the United Nations General Assembly marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust.
On December 10th, 2018 a new survey was released in Brussels, conducted by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), which
found an increasing level of antisemitism in Europe over the past five years. The survey revealed that 28% of those interviewed had experienced harassment because of their Jewish identity, but 79% of them did not report it to the authorities because they did not believe it would be of any help. 38% of the Jews who took part in the survey said that they were considering leaving Europe as they no longer felt safe in their home countries.
European Coalition for Israel is committed to combatting all forms of antisemitism. The online exhibition in partnership with the Holocaust and antisemitism Foundation is part of this on-going campaign to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and help combat all forms of antisemitism today.
For many years ECI has called upon churches and faith communities in Europe and beyond to honour the victims of the Holocaust in their Sunday service nearest to the 27th January.
The exhibition of Holocaust survivor stories is the work of New Zealand photographer and composer Perry Trotter from the Holocaust and antisemitism Foundation. Using black and white imagery and original music, survivors’ experiences are presented in a brief, compelling format. The work seeks to present powerful and evocative art while carefully maintaining historical accuracy.
The online exhibition of Holocaust survivor stories (formerly The Shadows of Shoah Exhibition) was officially launched by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Rt Hon John Key, at an International Holocaust Remembrance Day event January 2013.
Please feel free to use this material in your own efforts to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. The photographs speak for themselves. The video text is English, but if you would prefer it in another language, we suggest you arrange a person to translate into your own language while the video plays.
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