For information only - not an official document
UNIS/VIC/175
26 January 2011
United Nations Observes Holocaust Remembrance Day with an exhibition on the Holocaust in Europe
VIENNA, 26 January (UN Information Service) - The exhibition "The History of the Holocaust in Europe" will open at the Vienna International Centre (VIC) tomorrow (27 January) to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The travelling exhibition will be on display in Vienna until 11 February and is part of the events around the world on 27 January 2011.
The exhibition produced by the Mémorial de la Shoah and the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme provides a concise and comprehensive history of the Holocaust in Europe, beginning with the rise of Nazism in 1933. It chronicles the intensification of anti-Semitic sentiments and anti-Jewish laws in Hitler's Germany through the implementation of the "Final Solution"-Hitler's plan to murder every Jew in Europe.
The exhibition also describes the response by the international community and tells the stories of courage displayed by the Jewish resistance and non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews. It concludes with the discovery of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi killing machine and the indictment of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. This history greatly influenced the founding of the United Nations and led to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
This exhibition will also be hosted by United Information Centres in Bujumbura, Dakar, Manila, Mexico City, Moscow and the United Nations International Service in Vienna.
The Shoah Memorial, which was opened to the public in Paris on January 27, 2005, is the largest research, information and awareness raising centre in Europe on the unprecedented history of the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. This museum, documentation centre and place of remembrance, offers an exceptional set of documents and numerous educational and training activities in order to contribute to a better understanding of this period in history. www.memorialdelashoah.org
The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme was established by United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 to encourage Holocaust remembrance and education in order to help prevent genocide. Please visit the Programme's website at www.un.org/holocaustremembrance for further details.
* *** *
For further information contact:
Irene
Hoeglinger-Neiva
Public Information Officer, UNIS Vienna
Telephone: (+43-1) 26060-4448
Email:
irene.hoeglinger-neiva@unvienna.org
Media interested in attending the event need to register in advance by writing to:
press@unvienna.org
