This year’s International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust will be commemorated in several places across the Czech Republic.
From 10 a.m., the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic and the Foundation for Holocaust Victims, in cooperation with the Office of the Czech Senate, will hold a commemorative meeting in the Main Hall of the Senate.
Thanks to Czech TV, a live broadcast will be available on the Czech TV news channel, CT24.
At 3 pm the Czernin Palace, belonging to the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will host a Czech-Israeli-American commemorative event focusing on murdered and persecuted Jewish diplomats during World War II.
A commemoration will also be held at the Terezín Memorial at 1 pm. where a reading of author Roman Cílek’s book Holocaust – Slepá cesta dějin (Holocaust – A blind path of history) will take place in both Czech and German.
Between 1940 and 1945, 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, most of them Jewish. The prisoners at Auschwitz included 50 000 citizens of Czechoslovakia, about 6 000 of whom survived.
The Nazis murdered six million people of Jewish origin during the Second World War. The interwar Jewish community of Czechoslovakia was 350 000 strong, 250 000 of whom died during the war.
In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as the International Day to Honor Holocaust Victims.
