US President Joe Biden, in his Holocaust Remembrance Day address, referred to the Colleyville synagogue hostage crises, calling on world leaders to ‘commit to making a better future’. The Democrat said that the genocide of European Jews must by taught accurately and efforts should me made against attempts to ignore, deny, distort, and revise history. 

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Januart 27 is observed as the Holocaust Remembance Day as it falls on the anniversary of the liberation by Soviet troops of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps where Nazi Germany carried out its Final Solution seeking to murder the Jewish people of Europe.

“Today, we attempt to fill a piercing silence from our past—to give voice to the six million Jews who were systematically and ruthlessly murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, and to remember the millions of Roma, Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ individuals, and political dissidents who were killed during the Shoah,” the President said. 

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He described the holocaust as one of the darkest chapters in human history and asked nations to grieve and ‘to bear witness for future generations so that we can make real our sacred vow: never again’. 

Biden also welcomed Bronia Brandman, a survivor of Auschwitz who lost her parents and four of five siblings, to share her story. 

He then referred to the synagogue hostage situation, where a captor had held four people before being killed. 

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“From the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, to a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, we are continually and painfully reminded that hate doesn’t go away; it only hides. And it falls to each of us to speak out against the resurgence of antisemitism and ensure that bigotry and hate receive no safe harbor, at home and around the world,” he said. 

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Only last week, the United Nations General Assembly vowed to combat Holocaust denial and approved a resolution that defined the phenomenon as antisemitism. The text, with 114 signatories, was passed on the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference. 

“We must continue to pursue justice for survivors and their families. And we must ensure that aging survivors have access to the services they need to live out their lives in dignity,” the President added.