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International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025: 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
It is now 80 years since the liberation of Nazi Germany's concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz Birkenau, in Poland. A major commemoration event is taking place at the former camp on International Holocaust Remembrance Day; it will be attended by numerous Heads of State or Government, and other dignitaries, in a context of growing antisemitism across Europe.
The rise of religious intolerance in Europe
During its October I plenary session, the Ϸվ is due to hear a Commission statement on the rise of religious intolerance in Europe, followed by a debate. The item was included on the agenda in response to increasing concerns among human rights bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and religious communities regarding the situation of religious freedom and tolerance in Europe.
Plenary round-up – September 2024
Ϸվ's September 2024 plenary session took place as floods devastated many areas in central European Member States, leading Members to debate and adopt a resolution on the EU's preparedness to act to tackle disasters exacerbated by climate change. The flooding also led to the postponement of the planned statement on the priorities of the Hungarian Council Presidency. During the session, Members debated a number of European Commission statements: on financial and military support ...
International Holocaust Remembrance Day: The fragility of freedom
'Auschwitz didn't appear from nowhere', remarked Marian Turski, Holocaust survivor and child prisoner in the Auschwitz death camp, in January 2020 at the solemn ceremony on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The former Auschwitz prisoner described the path from tiny hardships in everyday life and growing discrimination and persecution laws, to the genocide of Jews, the Holocaust. The consecutive stages of shrinking freedom can be summarised as 10 stages of genocide, in a process that could ...
Jewish cultural heritage in Europe: Preservation as a means for understanding
Jews have lived throughout Europe as an important minority for almost two thousand years, and their fate has varied from one period to another according to the changing political situation. Both their prosperity and their relatively peaceful enjoyment of some freedoms have, at times, suddenly been removed. Discrimination, expropriations, banishments, looting and even pogroms have been recurrent events in the lives of Europe's Jewish communities down through the centuries. The Holocaust, initiated ...
The role of culture, education, media and sport in the fight against racism
Discrimination based on racial and ethnic origin is still widespread in the EU. Action to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and related intolerance rests on an established legal framework dating back more than two decades. This includes the Racial Equality Directive and the Council Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia.
Jewish communities in the European Union
The Jewish population in the EU has been diminishing in recent decades, and has witnessed an increase in acts of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence in recent years. In defence of its values, including respect for minorities, the EU undertakes and funds actions to counter anti-Semitism. This is a further updated version of an 'at a glance' note published in January 2019.
The European Union and Holocaust remembrance
The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and mass murder of Jews, whom the Nazi regime and its collaborators sought to annihilate along with other persecuted groups, such as Roma and Sinti. The expropriation, state-sponsored discrimination and persecution of the Jews by the Nazi regime began in 1933, followed by pogroms and their mass incarceration in concentration camps. Ultimately, this policy was extended to all Nazi-controlled European territories and countries during World ...
Supporting Holocaust survivors
Between 1933 and 1945, millions of Europeans suffered from Nazi crimes and the Holocaust. Today, the remaining survivors often live in difficult social conditions.
Jewish communities in the European Union
Europe’s Jewish population has been diminishing in recent decades, and a growing number of anti-Semitic acts and anti-Jewish violence have been occurring in recent years in the EU. In defence of its values, including respect for minorities, the EU undertakes and funds actions to counter anti-Semitism.