Surging anti-Semitism and a possible war crimes trial will be the backdrop as Israel hosts the global commemoration of the Holocaust in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Forty-nine delegations are scheduled to attend the fifth World Holocaust Forum, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and American Vice President Mike Pence among the world leaders participating. The event will mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, the most notorious symbol of Nazi Germany’s atrocities.
The event, taking place for the first time in Jerusalem, comes at a time of rising anti-Semitism around the world and deepening ignorance about the Holocaust as its memory fades.
The latest annual data from the Anti-Defamation League showed attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions doubled between 2015 and 2018. At the same time, only 45% of nearly 11,000 Americans polled last year knew 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust, according to the U.S.-based Pew Research Center. Approximately a third of the more than 7,000 Europeans in seven countries surveyed separately by CNN that same year knew “just a little or nothing at all” about the genocide.