Press Release, 23 April 2007

General Assembly of the IAC:
"Role of the NPD is absolutely alarming"

From 20 to 22 April 2007 the General Assembly of the International Auschwitz Committee attended by survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and representatives of Auschwitz foundations from 14 countries took place in Oswiecim/Auschwitz. For the first time also representatives of the second and third generation – descendants of holocaust survivors – from Greece, Israel and the Czech Republic took part.

Besides discussing the future educational work of the Auschwitz Memorial and the support and care for the survivors in many countries the participants focussed on the alarming rise of right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism in Europe and on the role played by the neo-fascist NPD in regrouping right-wing extremist forces in Germany:

"The role played by the NPD is absolutely alarming. It is unacceptable to us that a party threatening its opponents with violence and striving to eliminate freedom and democracy is granted such a scope of action by society", Noach Flug, the previous and newly elected President of the IAC from Jerusalem, stressed.

Noach Flug also underlined the close relation between the IAC and the United Nations: "We are thankful that the UN have proclaimed 27 January, the day of our liberation in Auschwitz, as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We value this also as a response to the repeated attempts made by the Iranian President to deny the holocaust.

"The United Nations themselves have been founded as a response to the genocide committed in Auschwitz. Therefore we are expecting and hoping for an immediate intervention of the international community in Darfour. We know what happens in Darfour every day, and we all are responsible", Noach Flug said at the end of the meeting.

The IAC General Assembly re-elected Christoph Heubner as Executive Vice-President. He is also head of the IAC office in Berlin.

For questions: Christoph Heubner, IAC Vice-President, Tel. 0172/393 22 62

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