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January 27th marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi concentration camp, and world Holocaust Remembrance day. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon joins worshipers at a synagogue in New York City to commemorate the anniversary.
In New York City even the falling snow and biting cold couldn't challenge the will to remember—to remember the Holocaust, one of the biggest tragedies in modern history.
From 1933 to 1945 Adolf Hitler led the killing of one third of the Jews living in Europe—around 6 million people. Most of them were put to death in gas chambers at a network of concentration camps. The most infamous of those camps was Auschwitz.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon joined worshipers and over 50 ambassadors to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and world Holocaust Remembrance Day at New York's Park East Synagogue.
[Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General]:
"The United Nations is strongly committed to prevent any such horrible things happening over and over again. That is why the United Nations General Assembly, in 2005, adopted a resolution and designated January 27th as international day of remembrance of the Holocaust."
Ban Ki-Moon has attended the Synagogue every year since 2005
[Ben Hedges, NTD News]:
"Because today is the Sabbath, Jewish law prohibits us from taking cameras into the Synagogue, but I did go in and speak to one holocaust survivor."
Moritz Goldfeier was just 15 years old when the Nazis sent him to Auschwitz along with his mother and two siblings. Moritz was lucky, he spent just two weeks in the camp before being transferred to a labor camp in Finland. During his brief time in Auschwitz, the gas chambers were out of order. The camp in Finland was later liberated by the Russians, but Moritz never saw his family members again.
I asked Ban Ki-Moon why remembering stories like these is important for UN member states across the world.
[Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General]:
"We have to do all we can to bring peace, and tolerance, and security, and dignity to all the people regardless of religious faith, ethnicities and races."
Survivors of the Holocaust are getting increasingly fewer, but as long as they are still around they continue to tell their stories.
[Ben Hedges, NTD News]:
"Even on a snowy winter day in New York city, more than half a century later, the horrors of the Holocaust are still not forgotten. Ben Hedges, NTD News, New York."
