Today marks the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the allied forces. The International Community has chosen this symbolic day to honour the memory of the millions of Jews who were exterminated with the use of unprecedented, systematic and bureaucratically organised methods at Nazi death camps and elsewhere.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day of responsibility, an international anniversary which once again brings to mind the darkest chapter of European history, which has since constituted a basic element of our collective European identity.
The Jewish communities of Greece suffered irreparably due to the Nazi atrocities, which led to their near annihilation. The Greek State today pays tribute to the memory of millions of our fellow citizens and foreign Jews who fell victim to the most heinous crime in modern History. We also honour the survivors of the Shoah, recognising the indelible wounds to their bodies and souls, as well as the courage and selfless sacrifice of those who rushed to protect those mercilessly persecuted.
Greece joins its voice to the consciousness of all Humanity, and its efforts to those of the other 31 members of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance that have undertaken, through the Stockholm Declaration, the responsibility of preserving the collective memory of our fellow men and women that perished in the Holocaust. At the same time, it repeats its pandemic condemnation of any act that denies historical truth and defames the memory of the millions of victims of the Shoah. We honour and we commit ourselves to the memory of all those lost, and in the name of all who survived, that we will shall never forget.
January 27, 2019