Yossi Lempkowicz
European Jewish Congress President, Moshe Kantor, has warned against the rising number of neo-Nazis in Europe.
Speaking at a special commemoration organized in the European Parliament on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Kantor said : “There are more neo-Nazis than Jews today in Europe
Kantor, who lost half of his family in the Shoah or Holocaust in Ukraine, deplored the ” trivialization” of the neo-Nazi phenomenon and warned that “lessons of history have not been learned.”
“We should not allow things to be repeated,” he added, in the presence of the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering.
He called for the need to organize a very strong education in Europe and elsewhere about this darkest period of mankind.
Kantor is the founder of the World Holocaust Forum, an international foundation for the commemoration of the Holocaust and its lessons.
The European Jewish Congress president invited the German president of the European Parliament to a commemoration later this year in Strasbourg of the 70th anniversary of “Kristallnacht” or Night of Broken Glass, the pogrom against Jews organized by the Nazis through Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938.
Poettering, who is a German Christian-Democrat politician, stressed the absolute need “never to forget these dark pages of history.”
“We must never forget. Preserving memory is an ethical and political duty” he added. “Auschwitz must never be forgotten so it can never be repeated” the EU parliament chief said.
He stressed that the European Union is a community based on shared values which has dignity at the center, condemning Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statements denying Israel’s right to exist and denying the Holocaust.
“As Europeans we have the responsibility to oppose all forms of extremism, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism” Poettering said.
Also attending the ceremony, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majalli Whbee spoke of a revival of antisemitism and Holocaust denial in the world, and called Ahmadinejad the “heir of the Nazis.”
“One day he will also threaten the European countries like Hitler did” he added.
“As an Israeli Druze, I am shocked to hear people denying the Holocaust and accusing Israeli leaders of being “Nazis” said Whbee, who had talks in the European Parliament, said.
In November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated 27 January as annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day marks the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, on 27 January 1945.
