mercatornet.com
2025-01-29
On January 27, 2025, political dignitaries and Holocaust survivors will gather in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Poland. They will attend the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps by the Red Army.
Auschwitz was a major network of Nazi concentration and death camps in occupied Poland during the second world war. It has become the preeminent symbol of the Holocaust. Some 1.1 million people, 90% of them Jews, were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau network of camps. In 2005, the United Nations established January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Australia will be represented by high-ranking politicians. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong and Attorney General Mark Dreyfus will attend the ceremony. They will be accompanied by Jillian Segal, the recently appointed Australian special envoy to combat antisemitism.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a statement that "it is vital that the lessons of the past continue to be learnt to ensure this never happens again". It also praises "the remarkable contribution" Jewish survivors and their descendants made to Australia.