28TH SPECIAL SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
On November 22, 2004, the General Assembly noted in its that 2005 would mark the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, which had brought untold sorrow to mankind, and had established the conditions for the creation of the United Nations. Two months later, on January 24, 2005, the UN General Assembly held a special session to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. The high-level gathering was prompted by requests from some 30 Member States who stated that “such an evil must never be allowed to happen again” and was the first of its kind.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the gathering, stating that the camps were not mere “concentration camps”; their purpose was to exterminate an entire people. There were other victims, too he said –- the Roma, or gypsies, Poles and other Slavs, Soviet war prisoners, and mentally or physically handicapped people, but he said the tragedy of the Jews was unique, as two thirds of all Europe’s Jews, including one-and-one-half million children, were murdered.
He said an entire civilization, which had contributed far beyond its numbers to the cultural and intellectual riches of Europe and the world, was uprooted, destroyed, laid waste. “We must be vigilant against all ideologies based on hatred and exclusion, whenever and wherever they may appear”, he said. In the statements that followed, speakers, including several foreign ministers, reviled the Nazi regime, which they said had built a cruel and implacable system of repression. Speakers from all regions of the world stressed that never again should another Holocaust happen.
Nine months after the special session, on 1 November 2005, the General Assembly adopted by consensus which rejected any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, and condemned "without reserve" all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they occur. That resolution commended those states which have actively engaged in the preservation of sites which served as Nazi death camps, concentration camps, forced labour camps and prisons during the Holocaust.
Resolution A/RES/60/7 also declared that the United Nations would designate 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
United Nations General Assembly adopted on 26 January 2007 also condemned any denial of the Holocaust and urges all Member States unreservedly to reject any denial of the Holocaust.
Documents
- : Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- : Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
- : Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity
- : Principles of international cooperation in the detection, arrest, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity
- : Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
- : Commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War
- : Commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War
- : Holocaust Remembrance
- : Programme of outreach on the “Holocaust and the United Nations” (2016)
- : Programme of outreach on the “Holocaust and the United Nations” (2018)
News and press releases
- 2005 : General Assembly to Convene special session commemorating sixtieth anniversary of liberation of Nazi death camps
- 2005 : Secretary-General, in remarks at memorial ceremony, says Wiesenthal convinced him of the need to keep United Nations at centre of struggle for human rights, dignity
- 2007 : GA adopts resolution condemning any denial of holocaust
- 2015 : United Nations-Organized Events Worldwide to Mark International Day Commemorating Holocaust Survivors under Theme — ‘Liberty, Life and Legacy’
- 2015 : Holocaust Exhibition to Open at United Nations Headquarters
- 2018 : 缅北禁地Ceremony to Mark Day in Memory of Holocaust Victims
- 2018 : Secretary-General Calls Resurgent Nazi Ideologies ‘Cancer’
- 2018 : As Neo-Nazism, White Supremacy Spread, People Must Unite to Prevent Normalization of Hate, Secretary-General Says in Remarks for Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony