UN delegation marks Int'l Holocaust Remembrance Day in Jerusalem

The UN envoy to the Middle East peace process Robert Serry on Thursday paid tribute in Jerusalem to the 6 million Jews who perished in Nazi Germany during the World War II.

In October 2005, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution designating Jan. 27 an international day of commemoration of the victims.

This year's ceremony at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, was the first attended by a high- ranking UN official, according to a Yad Vashem spokeswoman. Serry was accompanied by the heads of several UN agencies in Israel.

"The visit we've just concluded left a very strong impression on me, as I'm sure it did on all my colleagues," Serry said following a tour of the Children's Memorial Pavilion.

"It is one thing to read about the Holocaust and to see films about it, but it is another to look at luggage, the shoes and the photos of those individuals sent to their deaths," he continued.

Referring to Holocaust denial, which has struck roots in the decades since World War II, Serry said, "the UN condemns and rejects it without reservation. Such denial desecrates the memory of the 6 million Jews and others murdered and opens the door to future atrocities."

In Europe, the presidents of Germany and Poland gathered with Holocaust survivors at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Third Reich's main death camp, for ceremonies marking the 66th anniversary of its liberation by the Soviet army.

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