US Holocaust Museum to award Angela Merkel with top honor named for Elie Wiesel

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum will bestow its highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award, on German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her work advancing Holocaust awareness.

“Chancellor Merkel has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to making the preservation of Holocaust memory a priority for Germany,” says Tom Bernstein, who chairs the council governing the museum, in a statement. “The Museum has partnered with the German government and institutions on many initiatives, and those partnerships have only grown deeper and more fruitful under Chancellor Merkel.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C) walks with Holocaust survivor Max Mannheimer (3th R) at former Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, southwestern Germany, during a ceremony to mark 70 years since it was liberated by US forces on May 3, 2015. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO / CHRISTOF STACHE)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C) walks with Holocaust survivor Max Mannheimer (3th R) at former Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, southwestern Germany, during a ceremony to mark 70 years since it was liberated by US forces on May 3, 2015. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO / CHRISTOF STACHE)

Merkel was instrumental in 2011 in overcoming the reluctance among the 11 nations that run the International Tracing Service, the Germany-based documentation center of Nazi atrocities, to opening up its archives.

She will receive the award on April 24 during the museum’s National Tribute Dinner, which takes place on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Washington, DC Merkel will accept the honor by video from Germany.

— JTA

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