..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 25 January 2006
Press Release No: N/04/2006

FIRST UN HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVED IN BANGKOK

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) -- The first ever official UN Holocaust Memorial Day will be commemorated on Friday 27 January 2006 in Bangkok .

Holocaust Memorial Day will give an annual opportunity for the nations of the world to remember, reflect and commemorate all those who were victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution.

An exhibition entitled, “ Auschwitz – The Depth of the Abyss” organised and sponsored by the Embassy of Israel. The exhibition will be opened by the Ambassador of Israel to Thailand Ms. Yael Rubinstein in a ceremony at the UN Conference Centre in Bangkok on Friday 27th January at 11:30.

The exhibition commemorates the liberation of Nazi death camps during World War Two by telling the story of the Holocaust in photos and drawings.

It includes the Auschwitz Album, a photographic record of the process of mass murder that took place at Auschwitz-Birkenau and drawings by Zinovii Tolkatchev, a Russian soldier and artist who was present at the liberation of Majdanek. Zinovii Tolkatchev repeatedly wrote next to the sketches he drew at Majdanek on that day in January 1945: “to remember, not to forget”.

As part of its programme of outreach on the subject of the “Holocaust and the United Nations”, the UN Information Services will be running school education tours of the exhibition in collaboration with the Embassy of Israel upon request.

The UN resolution designating 27 January as the annual Holocaust Memorial Day was passed at the General Assembly's Sixtieth session on 26 October 2005.

NOTE TO EDITORS: You or your representatives are cordially invited to attend the UN Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday 27 January at 11:30 am at the UN Conference Centre, UNESCAP, Rajdamnern Nok Avenue , Bangkok . Refreshments will be served.

For further information please contact:

UN Information Services Bangkok
Tel: +(66-2) 288-1861-69, Fax: +(66-2) 288-1052
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org
http://www.unescap.org

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