Ashraf AboArafe
Both the German Embassy and the US one in Cairo hosted a joint ceremony to commemorate and honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and recount the crimes of the German Nazi regime.
The Holocaust, the reign of terror and tyranny represent the darkest chapter in German history, which should never be forgotten. Germany is committed to drawing lessons from its past for the present and the future.
On this occasion, Frank Hartmann, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Cairo, said:
“It is our duty as a nation and as human beings to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to make sure that history does not repeat itself, so that we are never forgotten, present and future. This trend has become a top priority for our educational system and for our foreign policy. Today, this means fighting against any kind of discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hatred, which are once again on the rise in our societies. And this struggle begins at the grassroots level of our communities, through education in schools, and in local and religious communities.”
For his part, Chargé d’Affairs at the US Embassy in Cairo, Ambassador Daniel Rubinstein, added the following:
“This event, along with other events of remembrance taking place around the world, shows that efforts to commemorate these terrible events, and to support Holocaust education and remembrance, are taking root. It is an unfortunate truth that the more the evils of the Holocaust in the past are removed, the more important it is for humanity to learn its lessons, especially in the face of denial and misinformation.”
Among the speakers and guests of honor at today’s celebration were contemporary witness and Holocaust survivor Ruth Cohen, Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as Drvis Hezarchi of the “Kreuzberg Initiative” against anti-Semitism, and Professor Nasser Qutbi, nephew of the Egyptian doctor Mohamed Helmy who He saved Jewish citizens from persecution and death at the hands of the Nazis.
In this joint celebration, the German Embassy and the US Embassy stress the importance of combating discrimination, violence and oppression – a message of enduring importance to the world. Therefore, as friends and partners, Germany and the United States remain committed to never forgetting.
Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered six million Jews as well as countless Sinti and Roma, people from occupied countries, disabled people, homosexuals and dissidents. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, celebrated on January 27 each year, commemorates the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet forces on that same day in 1945 and aims to preserve the memory of the victims.
