AJC Executive Director Addresses Holocaust Commemoration at UN
January 25, 2012 – New York – AJC Executive Director David Harris, addressing a Holocaust remembrance gathering at the United Nations today, implored the audience to not just commemorate the victims, but to redouble efforts globally to prevent it from ever happening again.
“This past September, indeed on these grounds, the notorious Holocaust denier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke,” said Harris. “To their credit, several UN member ambassadors walked out, but, shamefully, the majority stayed in the General Assembly hall and applauded his remarks.”
The UN event, attended by a standing-room-only crowd of more than 600, marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is observed on January 27, and the 70th anniversary of the Nazi massacre of Kiev Jews at Babi Yar in 1941.
Ukrainian Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev and Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor addressed the gathering.
Kiyotaka Akasaka, UN Under Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, also spoke. It was one of several Holocaust memorial events taking place this week at UN headquarters.
The UN General Assembly, in 2005, designated January 27, the date in 1945 that the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Please don’t think there’s not still work to be done,” said Harris. “We must continue to act because the world depends on our action, and not only our words,” said Harris, who also recalled his own visits to the Babi Yar site, beginning in the 1970s.
The commemorative event was organized by the American Forum of Russian Jewry in cooperation with leaders of the Ukrainian Jewish community and Ukrainian and Israeli Permanent Missions to the UN.
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