Today marks the tenth International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In a statement issued by the White House, President Obama referenced the recent terrorist attacks in Paris to emphasize the need for continued vigilance against bigotry, hatred, and anti-Semitism, concluding,
As a founding member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the United States joins the Alliance’s thirty other member nations and partners in reiterating its solemn responsibility to uphold the commitments of the 2000 Stockholm Declaration. We commemorate all of the victims of the Holocaust, pledging never to forget, and recalling the cautionary words of the author and survivor of Auschwitz Primo Levi, “It happened, therefore it can happen again. . . . It can happen anywhere.” Today we come together and commit, to the millions of murdered souls and all survivors, that it must never happen again.
The Telegraph reports on events happening across Europe to commemorate the anniversary. The Prince of Wales, speaking at an event in Westminster, read a three-line poem scratched into a wall by a victim of the Holocaust:
“I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
“I believe in love, even though I don’t feel it.
“I believe in God, even when he is silent.”