Israel seeks annual U.N. holocaust memorial day
By Bill RigbyUNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Israel is urging the United Nations to establish an annual international holocaust memorial day, a top Israeli diplomat said on Thursday.
An Israeli draft resolution, which it hopes will be adopted by the 191-member General Assembly during its 60th session opening next month, proposes Jan. 27 as a day to commemorate holocaust victims, marking the day in 1945 when Russian troops liberated Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp.
More than 30 European countries support Israel's plan, British Deputy Ambassador Adam Thomson said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Assembly President Jean Ping made public on Thursday.
"It is a universal resolution," said Israeli Deputy U.N. Ambassador Daniel Carmon in an interview. "A nonpolitical remembrance of the most atrocious event that happened in the last century -- it should be acknowledged by the United Nations."
Six million Jews were exterminated in Nazi camps and millions of others including Poles, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners and Gypsies perished or were used as slave labor in the camps.
The United Nations held a special session earlier this year to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the holocaust.
But Israel would like to see the world body devote more resources to the subject, including worldwide education programs, encouraging the preservation of Nazi camps and rejecting denials the holocaust took place.
Last Jan. 27, more than 40 world leaders gathered at Auschwitz to mark its liberation, but Israel wants the day to become a regular commemoration. Israel holds its own holocaust remembrance day, Yom Hashoah, in either April or May, but the event has not taken on international prominence.
The 28-member committee which sets the Assembly's agenda is to discuss Israel's resolution in the next few weeks, and it is widely expected that the Assembly will vote on the proposal during its next year-long session.
Copyright © 2008 Reuters
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