UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The U.N. commemorated Holocaust Day with the hope remembrance of past tragedies will help prevent new massacres.
"It is a tragedy that the international community has not been able to stop new horrors in the years since the Holocaust," General Assembly President Sheikha Haya al-Khalifa said Monday.
"This makes it all the more important that we remember the lessons of the past so that we do not make the same mistakes in the future. We must remain vigilant."
At the International Day in Commemoration of the Holocaust victims ceremony, concentration camp survivors testified alongside members of gypsy communities and disabled persons. During World War II, the Nazis exterminated six million Jews, 500,000 members of gypsy minorities, as well as the disabled and homosexuals.
In a video message sent from Africa, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon noted this ceremony should be an opportunity to reassert the United Nations' commitment to protect human rights and fight against bigotry.
"It keeps us vigilant for new outbreaks of anti-semitism and other forms of intolerance. And it is an essential response to those misguided individuals who claim that the Holocaust never happened, or has been exaggerated," he said.
Last Friday the General Assembly condemned Holocaust denial, with only Iran publicly refusing to support the resolution. The actual remembrance day was Saturday but was marked Monday instead.
At a related U.N. news conference, representatives of Roma and Sinti gypsy communities, with 12 million members in Europe, said they were subject to discrimination and open violence, especially in Eastern Europe.
Holocaust memorial ceremonies were held in other U.N. outposts
worldwide.
