Representatives of the central and local authorities, ambassadors and ordinary people took part in an event that was held to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust on January 27, IPN reports.
Attending the event, President Maia Sandu said the 20th century was full of pain. The Holocaust was one of the blackest events. “The physical extermination of a large number of innocent people, without the right to defense, without observing the elementary rights, executed mechanically, organized in an almost industrial way, showed the lowest limit of evil to which a society can fall,” she stated.
Maia Sandu noted she is near the Jewish community and the Roma community for which this day has a special meaning. In front of these communities and of all the citizens of the Republic of Moldova, the President undertook to contribute to fighting hate speech and to keep the memory of those sad times.
Parliament Speaker Zinaida Grecian noted that the Soviet army on January 27, 1945 released the detainees held at the concentration camp in Auschwitz. Not many survived the Nazi machinery. Almost 6 million women, men, elderly people and children were killed. Regrettably, the Nazi horrors haven’t been yet fully realized and there are yet manifestations of anti-Semitism and hatred in society. Moldova is taking steps to prevent and fight hate speech. In December 2020, Parliament toughened up the legislation so as to counteract the manifestations of religious intolerance.
Dumitru Solocan, secretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, said the horrors of the past should be realized and assumed so that a future free form such tragedies could be built.
In a video message transmitted from Jerusalem to the participants in the event staged in Chisinau, the Ambassador of Israel to Moldova Eli Belotsercovsky said 6 million Jews and Roma people became victims of the Holocaust. These people, if they remained alive, could have implemented projects beneficial to mankind. “According to the data of the Institute on the Holocaust of Jerusalem, 80 Jews were killed in the Republic of Moldova during the Holocaust. But I think these figures are much higher,” stated the diplomat.
“Regrettably, the problem of anti-Semitism is yet topical as there are many people who incite hatred, incite to destroy the Jewish people. We must fight such manifestations. In the Republic of Moldova, we also witness manifestations of anti-Semitism in the media.”
The head of the Jewish Community in Moldova Iulia Sheiman said that a monument to victims of the ghetto was inaugurated in Cahul last summer. Another monument to the victims of the Holocaust is to be built in Orhei, while the third will be unveiled soon in Cosăuți, Soroca.
The Holocaust Remembrance Day has been annually marked in Moldova on January 27 since 2015.
