UN Chief Attends Shoah Event at New York Synagogue
Image by getty images
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited a New York City synagogue to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in advance of International Holocaust memorial day.
Ban on Saturday spoke at Park East Synagogue at its memorial service in honor of victims of the Holocaust. He also paid tribute to Holocaust survivors and called for collective action to prevent future Holocausts.
“My hope is that our generation, and those to come, will summon that same sense of collective purpose to prevent such horror from happening again anywhere, to anyone or any group,” Ban said.
The International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust is observed annually on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation in 1945 of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. Over one million Jews and other minorities died there during World War II.
He recalled his visit to Auschwitz last November, during which he was “profoundly saddened” by what he saw as he walked around the death camp.
“Even today, the Holocaust is hard to grasp,” Ban said. “The cruelty was so profound; the scale so large; the camps spread so far and wide. The Nazi worldview was so warped and extreme – yet attracted so many followers.”
The featured speaker at the Jan. 27 memorial ceremony at U.N. Headquarters will be filmmaker Steven Spielberg, whose Shoah Institute for Visual History and Education was a landmark in preserving survivor testimony.
“Each of us has a role to play in combating intolerance, incitement and the manipulation of ethnic or religious identity that we see in conflicts and political campaigns,” Ban said. “All those involved in atrocities – whether head of State or head of militia – should be held accountable.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Chicago mayor donned keffiyeh for Arab Heritage Month event, sparking outcry from Jewish groups
-
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
-
Fast Forward Latvia again closes case against ‘Butcher of Riga,’ tied to mass murder of Jews
-
Fast Forward Protesters clash in Crown Heights as Ben-Gvir visits Chabad headquarters
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture In a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, doctors’ visits are free, but the wait may cost you
-
Fast Forward Chicago mayor donned keffiyeh for Arab Heritage Month event, sparking outcry from Jewish groups
-
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
-
Fast Forward Latvia again closes case against ‘Butcher of Riga,’ tied to mass murder of Jews
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.