In the run-up to the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz in January 2020 Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee made a statement on the anti-Semitic knife attack in New York and the current massive increase in anti-Semitic incidents in many European countries:

“Auschwitz survivors are filled with sorrow and horror, only weeks before the 75th anniversary of their liberation from the murderous hell of Auschwitz. They are shocked that, despite the 75 years that have elapsed, their memories of what happened before and inside Auschwitz are now reawakening with increasing clarity and seem to be more and more relevant. Clearly, the world does not have the strength or the will to counter and prevent the increasingly intense eruptions of anti-Semitic hatred from numerous sources.

The latest attack in New York, the anti-Semitic murders in recent years in Paris, the silently tolerated, intermittent outbreaks of latent anti-Semitism in the English Labour Party, death threats to Jewish artists and Auschwitz survivors, and attacks on synagogues in places such as Pittsburgh and Halle, but also the targeted murder of the President of the Government of Kassel Walter Lübcke by right-wing extremists, clearly demonstrate how everyday Jewish life is again being deliberately targeted with hatred and violence throughout the world.

Especially in view of the upcoming international remembrance celebrations marking the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, survivors of that concentration and extermination camp are calling on politicians around the globe to include references to the current upsurge of hatred in their commemorative speeches, a hatred that is presently increasing in many places, not only in Italy.”