An exhibition about people displaced by the Holocaust opened at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum on Monday, part of events that are being held around the world to mark International Holocaust Remembrance DayHolocaust Remembrance Day.
In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated Jan 27 as the International Holocaust Remembrance DayHolocaust Remembrance Day. Since 2005, commemorative events honoring the memory of Holocaust victims have been held around the world at the end of January, said Ravit Baer, Israeli consul-general in Shanghai.
Five other consuls-general - officials from the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, France and Italy spoke at the event.
Each shared a story about a person from their nation who was recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, an honor granted to those who helped save Jewish lives during World War II.
Together, they lit six candles in memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
After the Holocaust: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps, the exhibition will run until March 10, and looks at the history of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation AdministrationNations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and its aid to Holocaust survivors during and after WWII.
It also looks at the role of the displaced persons camps where Holocaust survivors were located and the reconstruction of their religious, cultural and daily life there.
The exhibition was shown last year at the UN Headquarters in New York, the Vienna International Centre in Austria and Stockton University in New Jersey.
According to Vanno Noupech, the UNHCR representative, the UN refugee agency, the exhibition will help in preserving and promoting the history of refugees in China and drawing more attention to the Holocaust, the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum and China's important support during this period.
I hope that the outreach and engagement with the Chinese public will inspire more interest and attention to the millions of refugees around the world today, for whom history is tragically repeating itself.
Since the 1940s, the context, places and reasons for fleeing home have changed, but the suffering and longing to return home has not, he said, pointing out that the number of people forced to flee their homes today has reached over 100 million.
The need to protect, shelter and help refugees and communities who host them has grown exponentially and is heightened by global food insecurity, new conflicts, climate change and growing inequalities fueled by the COVID 19 epidemic, he said.
China's attention and support can play a critical role in providing humanitarian relief and addressing global forced displacement.