EU calls for stance against anti-Semitism

People around the world must inform the generations born after the Holocaust about the terrible events and educate them to take a stand against anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination, a senior official of the European Union (EU) said Tuesday.

In a statement to commemorate the International Holocaust Memorial Day, EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said she joined people all over the world in commemorating a crime unparalleled in human history, in which six million Jews as well as millions of other innocent victims were murdered in Nazi death camps.

"Seventy years after the Holocaust, there are Jewish communities in Europe that again feel threatened," Xinhua news agency quoted her as saying, noting that the latest terrorist attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, in which four people were killed, was a grim reminder that violent anti-Semitism was still alive.

Mogherini said it was not enough to say "never again", adding that people must turn these words into action.

Those who suffered and perished during the Holocaust must never be forgotten, nor should people forget the daily struggles of the survivors, who still carry with them the pain of their experiences, and the memory that constitutes a lesson for future generations, she said.

"It is neither easy nor agreeable to dredge this abyss of viciousness, and yet I think it must be done, because what could be perpetrated yesterday could be attempted again tomorrow, could overwhelm us and our children," she quoted the words of Primo Levi, a renowned Italian writer and Auschwitz survivor, as saying.

In October 2005, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising Jan 27 as the annual International Holocaust Memorial Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.