February 5, 2020 --

The Fifth  World Holocaust Forum, held in Jerusalem, January 23, coincided with the 75 anniversary of the liberation by the Red Army of Auschwitz, the largest of the  Nazi extermination camps, where an estimated 1.1 miullion people were killed, including 960,000 Jews. Only 7,000 people survived  when the camp was liberated.   

This year the forum attracted some 50 dignatries, including Presidents Putin, Macron and Zelensky;  royalty, including Britain's Prince Charles, and Vice President Pence.

Vice President, in part, said, "Through progroms, persecutions, and expulsion in the ghettos, and finally, even through the death camps, the Jewish people clung to an ancient promise that He would 'never leave you or forsake you' and that he would leave this people to inherit the land that he swore to your ancestors that he would give them."  The vice president continued, "And so, today, as we bear witness to the strength and the resilience and the faith of the Jewish people, so too we bear witness to God's faithfulness to the Jewish people."    Mr. Pence ended his remarks in the hope that God will "bless the Jewish people, the State of Israel, the United States, and all the nations gathered here.  And may He who creates peace in the heavens create peace for us and for all the world."

 (LPR would add the hope the anyone who hears someone accuse President Trump of being an anti-Semite cite his vice president's remarks in Jerusalem, January 23, 2020 to discredit the speaker for uttering a malicious falsehood.)

President Putin, in part, declared:   "The memory of the Holocaust will serve as a lesson and a warning only if it remains fully intact, without any omissions, Unfortunately, today the memory of war and its lessons and legacy often fall subject to the immediate political situation. This is completely unacceptable. It is the duty of current and future politicians, state and public figures to protect the good name of the living and fallen heroes, civilians and victims of the Nazis and their allies."   Considering the fraught relationship that, in years past, saw the former Soviet Union as an adversary of the State of Israel, President Putin indicated a 180 degree turn in that relationship, thanking "our Israeli colleagues for a warm, very hospitable reception here in Jerusalem, and to wish peace, prosperity and all the best to everyone at the conference, and, of course, to the citizens of Israel."