CNN

January 25th, 2021

CNN partners with the UN, UNESCO and the IHRA for Holocaust Commemoration Day

Atlanta, January 25th 2021.  CNN is partnering with the UN, UNESCO and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for this year’s Holocaust Commemoration Day, on Wednesday January 27th.

The network has produced two key elements of the UN’s official commemoration, which will be broadcast online by the UN, UNESCO and the IHRA on the day itself. Key speakers at the ceremony include the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres; UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay; and Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel.

Clarissa Ward, CNN chief international correspondent, interviews author Dr Irene Butter, who survived internment at the notorious Bergen-Belsen camp during World War II.  Dr Butter is also joined by her granddaughter for a conversation about finding hope and protecting democracy.  Dr Butter has also written an Opinion Piece for CNN Digital, which will be published on the day.

CNN anchor Hala Gorani chairs a panel discussion on the issue of Holocaust denial and distortion.  She is joined by journalist, author and Kindertransport refugee Hella Pick CBE; historian, journalist and Holocaust survivor, Marian Turski; historian and author, Professor Deborah Lipstadt; Dr Robert Williams, chair of the IHRA Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial; and author and international law expert, Professor Philippe Sands.

Germany’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, has also written an Opinion piece for CNN digital, to mark the Commemoration.

Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops on 27 January 1945.  In 2005, The United Nations General Assembly officially proclaimed the anniversary as the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Ends

Photo: Suitcases stolen from people deported to Auschwitz
(Credit: Paweł Sawicki, Auschwitz Memorial)