The European Jewish Congress, in cooperation with the European Commission, will host an online event marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 25 January 2021 at 16:00 CET.
The event will feature EJC President Dr. Moshe Kantor, Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Promoting the European Way of Life, and Irish-Slovak Holocaust survivor Tomi Reichental, and will be available live on Zoom
The event will address the lessons of the Holocaust for 21st century Europe, new forms of remembrance, concepts of atonement and reconciliation, and our common duty to speak up and counter Holocaust denial and distortion. The event will be moderated by EJC Director of European Affairs Ariella Woitchik.
Tomi Reichental survived as a child nearly a year in Bergen-Belsen camp. At the age of 84 years, he is still haunted by childhood memories from one of Germany’s most notorious concentration camps.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1935, he was arrested in 1944 and taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He lost over 30 family members in the Holocaust. It took him 55 years before he started to speak about what he witnessed. Tomi Reichental has given talks in secondary schools, colleges and at various other events across Ireland for many years. He has devoted his life Holocaust remembrance, forgiveness, conflict resolution and reconciliation.
Excerpts of the film “Close to Evil” will be shown at the event. The film is the compelling story of Reichental’s quest to meet one of the SS women who held him captive in Bergen- Belsen. The documentary has won prizes at the Galway Film Fleadh and the Irish Film Institute’s “Stranger than Fiction” Festival and was screened on RTE in 2014.
The event will be the third edition of the annual cooperation between the European Jewish Congress and the European Commission marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Click here to register to the event
