merrion street

• - Reads the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan T.D., will today (Sunday) attend the annual National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration at the Mansion House in Dublin. The commemoration takes place on the Sunday nearest to 27 January, the date of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

During the ceremony Minister Flanagan will read from the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust.

He will be joined the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald T.D., and participants from all walks of Irish life, in honouring the lives of those who perished during the Holocaust. The ceremony will include readings, survivors’ recollections and music. Candles will be lit in memory of the millions of innocent Jewish people, and others, tortured and murdered because of their religious belief, disability, sexual orientation or ethnic identity.

Speaking before the ceremony Minister Flanagan said:

“I am deeply honoured to participate once again in this significant event. The National Holocaust Memorial Commemoration provides a very important opportunity for us to remember the lives of the millions of Jewish men, women and children, and the countless other individuals, who were targeted and murdered because who they were was abhorrent to an ideology that could not tolerate difference of any kind.”

The Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, which Minister Flanagan will read at the ceremony, is the founding document of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an international alliance committed to promoting Holocaust education, remembrance and research. Minister Flanagan stated:

“This important commemoration also gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we have learned from the past. The Holocaust was a most extreme manifestation of intolerance and hatred which has left an indelible scar on humanity. It must never be forgotten. Unfortunately in today’s world, fundamentalist ideologies continue to target particular groups. We must be vigilant in standing against such hatred and to respond to it by building a world based on the ideals of respect and acceptance.”

“As a signatory to the Stockholm Declaration, the Irish Government has made a commitment to fight against the evils of antisemitism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, xenophobia and other expressions of hatred. I would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm that commitment.”