The Fifth World Holocaust Forum
The Fifth World Holocaust Forum, organized by the World Holocaust Forum Foundation, in cooperation with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, will take place on 23 January 2020 at Warsaw Ghetto Square in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. Marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Forum will begin at 13:30.
“This is an unprecedented and historic event, the highest-level meeting ever held in Israel and on the issue of antisemitism,” Dr. Kantor, initiator of the event, said. “We must use this event as a crucial and defining moment to build a global coalition of leaders who will send a strong and united message that antisemitism, in all of its forms, will not be tolerated and those who perpetrate it will be met with zero tolerance.”
Forum Program:
The event will open at 13:30 with an address by President of the State of Israel H.E. Mr. Reuven "Ruvi" Rivlin. Additional speakers include: Prime Minister of the State of Israel H.E. Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice President of the United States of America H.E. Mr. Michael R. Pence (awaiting official confirmation), President of the Russian Federation H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin, President of France H.E. Mr. Emmanuel Macron,The Prince of Wales HRH Prince Charles, and President of Germany H.E. Mr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Holocaust survivor and Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Israel Meir Lau as well as Forum organizers – President of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation Dr. Moshe Kantor and Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev – will also speak at the event. Interspersed throughout the proceedings will be several short video clips and musical interludes performed by an international orchestra, conducted by world-renowned conductor Vladimir Spivakov and accompanied by an international choir.
At approximately 15:10, the Memorial Ceremony segment will begin. Holocaust survivors Rose Moskowitz from the United States and Colette Avital, Chairperson of the Center Organization of Holocaust Survivors in Israel will light a memorial torch, after which heads of delegations will commemorate the victims of the Holocaust by laying wreaths at the foot of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Monument in Warsaw Ghetto Square at Yad Vashem. Cantor Shai Abramson will recite the El Maleh Rahamim memorial prayer, followed by Holocaust survivor Naftali Deutsch who will say Kaddish, the mourner's prayer. The ceremony will conclude with a moment of silence and Israel's national anthem, Hatikvah.