EU becomes formal partner to International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
EU Commission says move will support its efforts to combat anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia as well as promote understanding so future generations learn lessons of the past
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The European Union became a permanent partner to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance on Thursday in a move it said would support its campaigns against Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, and racism.
The EU will be represented at the IHRA by the European Commission, the body which proposes legislation for the union.
Membership will give the Commission access to the IHRA working groups and other resources, the EU said in a statement.
“Participation of the EU in this international body will allow closer cooperation on combating Holocaust denial and preventing racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism,” the statement said.
“With a decreasing number of Holocaust survivors and at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise, we need to foster the memory of the darkest chapter in our history,” said EU Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans. “The EU joining the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance will help promote understanding so that future generations will heed the lessons of our past.”
“This commitment is part of our wider effort to fight against anti-Semitism,” said Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vera Jourova. “Our involvement in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has special importance at a time when Holocaust denial is spreading.”
The EU said the move was a follow-up to President of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker’s call for “closer international cooperation” which he made on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, as well as a European Parliament resolution to combating anti-Semitism in June 2017.
The IHRA is an intergovernmental organization promoting education about the Holocaust in which the World War Two Nazi regime murdered six million of Europe’s Jews.
A CNN television network survey, published Tuesday, found that over one-fifth of Europeans believe that Jewish people have too much influence in finance and politics, while over a third admitted that they knew nothing at all or “just a little” about the Nazi regime’s murder of six million Jews during World War II.
The poll sampled 7,000 people in Europe, more than 1,000 each from Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden.
More than a quarter (28%) of those who took part in the online survey said they believed Jews have “too much influence” in business and finance, while 20% felt Jews had the same excessive influence in media and politics.
Concerning the Holocaust, 34% said they knew nothing or “just a little” about the mass murder of European Jews which happened 75 years ago, within living memory.
The IHRA has been in the news lately after the UK’s Labour party adopted only a limited version of the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism, which caused a major public outcry.
The definition, which omitted some of the alliance’s language around criticism of Israel, renewed claims that the left-of-center party has become hostile to Jews under leader Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause and opponent of Israel.
Labour eventually accepted the full definition in September, although it added a statement that emphasized the right to “free speech” on Israel, drawing more criticism from Jewish groups.
