Over 70 parliamentarians from across Europe will gather in Brussels on Friday to mark the anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, a pivotal moment in Holocaust history.

Seventy years after a group of Nazi officials gathered at a lakeside villa on the Wannsee near Berlin to deliberate on the “final solution,” the statesmen will issue a special declaration to commemorate the event at which various other “final solutions” –such as exile to Madagascar and deportation eastward – were taken off the table in favor of the plan to exterminate European Jewry.

In addition to commemorating Wannsee’s Final Solution plan with “humility and sadness”, the declaration also explicitly rejects the notion of “double genocide” a direction advocated by some East European states, particularly the Baltics, which argues that Europe experienced two equal genocides – a Nazi and a Soviet one.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The concept of such a “Double Genocide” was formalized in the 2008 Prague Declaration and resulted, among other things, in a 2009 European Parliament vote in favor of an all-European unitary day of commemoration for the victims of Nazi and Soviet crimes, of different kinds.

British parliamentarian Lord Janner of Braunstone, one of those behind the declaration explained the reason for the additional emphasis of the Friday initiative. “Seventy years on from the decision that more than any other defined the Holocaust, the memory of the Holocaust is under unprecedented attack from member states of the European Union, particularly Lithuania. This initiative is about preserving the historical truth for the benefit of all Europeans. If we lose the true meaning of one genocide we lose the meaning of all genocides. If everything is genocide then nothing is genocide,” he said in a statement.

The signatories to the declaration are from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

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.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

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.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount