The event has been organised by the European Jewish Association (EJA), a pan-European body of Jewish communities, to mark the upcoming 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, head of the EJA, said prior to the Kraków meeting that its principal goal was to “address the need for Holocaust education in Europe … and a re-commitment from all those present to our shared fight against hatred towards Jews.’’
Among those attending the symposium was the chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, Chief Rabbi Israel Lau, members of the European Parliament, including the First Vice-President Mairead McGuinness, Holocaust survivors, and members of Jewish communities from all over Europe.
On Tuesday, symposium participants will go to Auschwitz to pay tribute to the victims of the Nazi genocide. They are expected to lay wreaths at an execution wall and visit the Auschwitz Memorial Museum.
Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945.
It was the largest of the German Nazi concentration and death camps.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities, perished there.
(mk/gs)