Knesset delegation remembers Holocaust at Auschwitz site

Delegates from the Knesset, Israel's parliament, at the the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz on January 27: photo - PAP / Andrzej Grygiel

The sound of the Jewish horn of repentance, the shofar, blown by deputy speaker of the Knesset Yitzhak Vaknin, was heard at a ceremony attended by over 50 Israeli MPs at the monument to the victims of Nazism on Monday, before the delegation toured the prisoner blocks and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp by the Soviet Red Army on the 27 January 1945.

Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and David Lau, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, prayed together with Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox priests, who lit candles in memory of the 1.1 million, mostly Jews but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others who died at the death camp during WWII.

"If we lose the hope to build a new world, then we give in to Auschwitz," said Israeli Labour Party leader Isaac Herzog, head of the Knesset delegation.

Among the former prisoners in attendence was one-time Israeli ambassador to Poland, Shevach Weiss.

The Russian ambassador to Poland Alexander Alekseev also attended the ceremony, saying that once Soviet command learned about the slaughter occurring inside the death camp in September 1944, the "liberation of the camp was of great importance".

Later, in nearby Krakow, Israeli MPs met with a delegation of Polish politicians, led by speaker of the lower house of parliament, Ewa Kopacz, as well as parliamentarians from the Czech Republic, Greece, France, Estonia, Lithuania, Italy, Germany, Spain and Hungary in a joint session dedicated to remembering the Holocaust. (pg)

source: PAP/Reuters