Now, UNGA adopts resolution rejecting Holocaust denial

United Nations: The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution to reject and condemn any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event.

The draft resolution, submitted by Israel and Germany, won the approval of the General Assembly without a vote, reports Xinhua news agency.

Israel has consistently campaigned for keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews are believed to have been killed by Nazi Germany, and keeping its memorials in focus. The Jewish nation also consistently lobbies to win the support of other countries in any efforts in the direction, and holds up this history to establish its image as a people once subjected to cruel treatment.

There has also been a body of scholarly opinion that denies the Holocaust citing historical evidence, including evidence of academic attempts to exaggerate the torture of Jews in Europe; some writers who though not denying the Holocaust in toto, argue that the loss of lives in popular notion is greatly exaggerated.

In about sixteen countries in Europe, including France, Austria, Greece Hungary and Germany, apart from Israel, Holocaust denial is an offence. Some of these countries such as Poland, Hungary and Romania, also have laws that forbid display of Nazi symbols.

The latest UNGA resolution "rejects and condemns without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part", and urges all UN member states to do so as well.

Going one step further in its bid to stop Holocaust denial, the resolution also commends those member states that have actively engaged in preserving those sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration camps, forced labour camps, killing sites and prisons during the Holocaust, as well as similar places operated by Nazi-allied regimes, their accomplices or auxiliaries.

It urges member states to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.

As an added effort to keep alive Holocaust memories, the resolution also urges member states and social media companies to take active measures to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial or distortion by means of information and communications technologies and to facilitate reporting of such content.

The resolution requests the UN Outreach Programme on the Holocaust as well as all relevant UN specialized agencies to continue to develop and implement programs aimed at countering Holocaust denial and distortion, and to advance measures to mobilise civil society, and invites all relevant stakeholders to educate their societies truthfully about the facts of the Holocaust and the importance of its lessons as a countermeasure against Holocaust denial and distortion, in order to prevent future acts of genocide.

(With inputs from IANS)