The commemorative ceremony organized in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs included official opening of exhibition on the “Lost world of the Sephardic Jews from the Western Balkans” on the occasion of the 27th of January – the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Opening remarks were delivered by the Minister of Education and Science, Mrs.Renata Deskoska, the President of the Jewish Community Mrs.Berta Romano-Nikolic, the ambassadors of the United Kingdom and Germany, Mr.Charles Garrett and Mr.Thomas Gerberich, Chief of the OESCE mission, Mrs. Nina Suomalainen and the director of the “Centropa” organization from Vienna, Mr.Edward Serota.

Twelve years ago the United Nations General Assembly decided to set the 27th of January as a date to honor the Holocaust victims. It was the day when the operation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz was terminated.

The United Nations Resolution declaring the International Holocaust Day calls for respect and remembrance of the Holocaust victims and for preparation and implementation of educational programs so these events from past history never to repeat again.

On 27th of January 1945 the Red Army of the Soviet Union arrived in Auschwitz facing several thousand remaining prisoners in the camp which was partially destroyed by the withdrawing Germans. The survivors and the material proofs referred to mass scale murders that have been taking place in Auschwitz.

Around 90% of all victims of the largest concentration camp of the Third Reich were Jews. The Holocaust was a systematic prosecution and murdering of Jews, Roma, Slavs… sponsored by the Nazi regime in Germany with the implementation of ideology that the Germans are the superior and all other nations are inferior race and that their lives are worth nothing. Adolf Hitler called the effort for their elimination the “final solution”.

Special killing techniques were developed in Auschwitz and other death camps – from gas chambers to deadly experiments on humans.

The Holocaust victims also included 7,200 Macedonian Jews. On 11th of March 1943, 98% of the Jews from Macedonia were collected in the “Monopol” building in Skopje, most of them from Bitola, Shtip and Skopje and sent to Treblinka concentration camp to be murdered in gas chambers. According to the Jewish Community in Macedonia, only around 200 Jews live in Macedonia today.

In order to remember the deported Macedonian Jews, the Memorial Center for the Holocaust Victims was opened in March 2011 in Skopje, one of the four such Centers in the world, in addition to those in Israel, Germany and United States.

Originally published by: Telma.com.mk