2013-01-27 18:47:07

Holocaust Memorial Day Overshadowed By anti-Semitism


(Vatican Radio)-- Europe has remembered Sunday the killing of 6 million Jews and others the Nazi's didn't like during World War Two. Holocaust survivors, politicians, religious leaders and others marked the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day with solemn prayers, amid warnings of rising anti-Semitism in Europe, including in Hungary. Stefan Bos reports: RealAudioMP3

Pope Benedict XVI warned that "the memory of this immense tragedy, which above all struck so harshly the Jewish people, must represent for everyone a constant warning so that the horrors of the past are not repeated."


Events Sunday took place at sites including Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former death camp where Adolf Hitler's Germany killed at least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, in southern Poland.


Sunday was the 68th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by Soviet troops in 1945.

Holocaust survivor Bat Sheva Dagan still searches for answers. "Why did I survive that hell? Was it God above? luck? Or my destiny? who knows.. I simply can't tell," she said during an emotionally charged cceremony at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.


PRAYERS SAID

In Warsaw, prayers were also held Sunday at a monument to the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

Yet, the annual memorial day was overshadowed by concerns about rising anti-Semitism, especially in countries such as Hungary.


Recently, a legislator of Hungary's far right Jobbik party suggested to draw lists of Hungarian Jews who he said are "a threat" to the nation's security.


The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, expressed outrage. "There is anti-Semitism in Europe There is a free-elected member of a member state of the European Parliament asking for registering Jews," he said.


"This is a shame in Europe," Schulz added, prompting loud applause.


ROME CONCERNED

The mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, agrees. He said lights of the ancient Colosseum in Italy's capital would be dimmed Sunday to protest Jobbik party's statement and other acts of antisemitism in Hungary, including threats against Jews and the desecration of Jewish graves and Holocaust monuments.


Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has come under pressure to distance himself from extremism.


He said Sunday that his government "protects all citizens and condemns all forms of anti-Semitism."

Hungary isn't alone. Jewish leaders say 2012 also saw a sharp rise in expressed hatred towards Jews elsewhere in Europe, as extremists search for scapegoats to blame for the continent's economic crisis.








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