First Christian Holocaust Remembrance Day in Europe 

Hundreds of Churches Remember Jewish Victims of Nazi Atrocities 

By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News Service

BRUSSELS (ANS) – Support for the first Christian Holocaust Remembrance Day is growing in Europe. The idea of a Remembrance Day on January 27, the day when the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, was first put forward by the European Parliament in the year 2000.

Support for the first Christian Holocaust Remembrance Day is growing in Europe. The idea of a Remembrance Day on January 27, the day when the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, was first put forward by the European Parliament in the year 2000.In 2005 it was also adopted also by the United Nations. Most churches, however, have not been actively involved in the commemoration events marking the day.

This is why a number of church leaders in Europe have decided to remember the horrors of the Nazi atrocities in Sunday church services on 28 January, one day after the official Holocaust remembrance.

Churches all over Europe are participating - from Greece in the south to Finland in the north and from Ireland in the west to Ukraine in the east. Leaders from a wide range of denominations are involved - traditional Protestants and Charismatics, Catholics as well as pastors from minority churches, most notably also leaders from local Arab churches in Europe.

By incorporating elements of a remembrance in the regular Sunday church service the initiative speaks to regular churchgoers who may not be aware of the threats facing Israel and the Jewish people today.

Just as the campaign was launched in December, a conference was organized in Teheran “to scientifically discuss whether the Holocaust really took place”. The event led to an outcry, and the European Union publicly condemned the Iranian sponsored conference.

The European Commission has already expressed support for the Christian initiative. At a commemoration event organized in Brussels, January 29, by the European Coalition for Israel the long time Vice-President of the European Parliament, Ingo Friedrich, will speak.

One of the objectives of the campaign is to remind people that the Holocaust is a historical reality, which cannot be denied. It may happen again, if we do not learn from history. The organizers expect hundreds of churches to take part this year and hope to reach thousands within the next few years.

“Both the modern state of Israel and the new Europe was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust and their futures are increasingly interconnected,” says campaign chairman Willem Glashouwer from the Netherlands. (www.learnfromhistory.eu)