International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day of responsibility and contemplation for humanity, as well as a tribute to the millions of Jews who were the victims of a methodically organised atrocity that stands as one of the darkest pages in European history. Today, on the seventy sixth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Allied Forces, Greece remembers the victims of the Holocaust, with tens of thousands of Greek Jews among them, who were persecuted and exterminated at the Nazi concentration camps. We grieve for our martyred fellow citizens and the virtual decimation of our country's historic Jewish communities. Greece honours the victims of the Shoah, the survivors of unthinkable atrocities, and the heroic, selfless contribution of all those who sheltered victims of merciless persecution by the Nazi racial madness. We all bear the duty of perpetuating the remembrance of these crimes as a barrier to any form of anti-Semitism. Since 2005, Greece has been a full member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and, having signed the Stockholm Declaration, is committed to keeping alive the memory of our fellow human beings who died in the Holocaust. This year marks the first Greek Presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as concrete recognition of our country's role in the fight against anti-Semitism and the struggle to protect historical truth. Greece will continue the fight against racism, bigotry, intimidation and xenophobia, will continue honouring and protecting the memory of all those who perished, and is committed to working tirelessly to ensure that those who lost their lives will never be forgotten, so that humanity never again goes through such atrocities. At the same time, Greece unequivocally and systematically condemns any act that deliberately trivialises and denies the historical truth, as well as any act that desecrates the memory of the millions of victims of the Holocaust.
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