Dear Friends,

I have just arrived in Israel from Krakow where we commemorated the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.

As I am sure many of you will have seen this historic event was extremely symbolic and significant and it received unprecedented media coverage worldwide. The eyes of the world, this week, were on Auschwitz.

WJC, in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation, brought 101 survivors of Auschwitz, from 21 countries, together with members of their families, to participate in this auspicious event. Their presence — surely the last time such a large number will be able to gather there — made this commemoration particularly meaningful.WJC President Ronald S. Lauder spoke at the official ceremony in front of the ‘Death Gate’ at Birkenau, alongside three survivors of Auschwitz, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Dr. Piotr Cywinski, and the President of Poland, H.E. Bronislaw Komorowski, under whose patronage the event was organized. Ronald spoke of currently growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the recent murders of Jews, simply because they were Jews, and – addressing his remarks to the leaders of the 40 country delegations present, including President Hollande of France & President Gauck of Germany – made a powerful and impassioned plea for all countries to stand up to this new wave of hatred. This ceremony, was broadcast live to tens of millions of households around the world.

You can view highlights of Ronald’s speech on the WJC website,

and the text can be read here.

Over 100 representatives of Jewish communities from around the world were also present at the ceremony, many of them as part of their countries’ official delegations, and in total the WJC delegation (including a large contingent from WIZO USA, groups of students, and the Shoah Foundation representative) numbered 650 people.

The evening before the official ceremony, WJC & Shoah Foundation held a reception at which Shoah Foundation Founding Chairman, Steven Spielberg, and Ronald addressed the survivors. This was followed by a dinner at which Minister Sylvan Shalom, representing the Israeli Government, also spoke. An IDF exhibition of wartime aerial photographs of Auschwitz Birkenau, put together especially for WJC for this event and presented by IDF Air Force Officers, was run three times because of the interest it generated.

All-in-all this was a mammoth undertaking and I would like personally to thank all who worked tirelessly and with true dedication on this project over the last 6 months, in a spirit of excellent team-work, led by programs department of WJC Headquarters in New York, the Brussels and Jerusalem WJC offices, our Regional Affiliates, and our communities around the world.

I also wish to pay tribute to our lay-leaders, including WJC Steering Committee members Eduardo Elsztain and Julius Meinl who joined us in Poland, and particularly Ronald, for his vision and for his unwavering support of this undertaking.

The WJC has been inextricably intertwined with the Shoah since the wartime years. The famous ‘Riegner Telegram’ sent by WJC’s Geneva Representative, Gerhart Riegner, on 8 August 1942, was the first message to warn the world that the Nazi’s were implementing their ‘Final Solution’ to the Jewish question. In the intervening years, WJC has played a leading role in many areas of Holocaust legacy, including laying out the scope of the Holocaust at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg; negotiations for reparations with the post-war German government; exposing Kurt Waldheim’s lies about his wartime past; negotiating a settlement with Swiss bank’s for so-called ‘dormant’ accounts of Holocaust victims and so on.

Our challenge today, especially in view of the dwindling number of witnesses to this atrocity, is countering the denial, banalization and trivialization of the Shoah, and – even more importantly – making this difficult and uncomfortable subject relevant to a new younger generation.

Social Media is the way to connect with this generation and so I am delighted to report that over the last week WJC postings on Facebook about the 70th Anniversary Commemoration event have been viewed by over 10 million people.

Whilst sitting in the tent where the official ceremony was being conducted with 3,000 attendees, looking on the Death Gate of Auschwitz-Birkenau through which at least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, passed but never returned, we all felt profound feelings of sadness, hurt and loss. The words of the survivors touched us, and those who lit candles at the memorial following the ceremony felt, for a few minutes, the biting cold of winter at Auschwitz that so many endured.

It is our responsibility to remember and honor the victims of the Shoah, a responsibility that we do not take lightly.

Best wishes,