President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades is expected to attend on January 23, 2020, events in Israel, commemorating the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an international memorial day that takes place on the 27th of January of every year. Its aim is to commemorate the tragedy of the Holocaust that occurred during the Second World War.
It commemorates the genocide that resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews and 11 million other people, by the Nazi regime and every other nation that collaborated with them.
The Holocaust was the systematic murder of Jews which was carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through work in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps. The main camps the above events took place in were Auschwitz, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland.
A government source told the Cyprus News Agency that President Anastasiades will be among the foreign leaders to attend commemorative events, at the invitation of the government of Israel.
He is also expected to pay a visit to the Yad Vashem memorial and lay a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance.
Yad Vashem is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the dead; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and other peoples who helped Jews in need during the war; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding a repetition of such events in the future.
