International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance: Swiss chairmanship holds plenary meeting in Bern
Bern, 24.11.2017 - As part of its chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), Switzerland is holding a plenary meeting in Bern for the organisation's 31 member states from 27 to 30 November 2017. One of the goals of the meeting is to establish what steps need to be taken to implement the IHRA’s first strategy which was adopted at the plenary meeting in Geneva on 30 June 2017. The IHRA works to promote research and education about the Holocaust and to keep alive the memory of the victims through commemorations and memorials.
Following on from the IHRA plenary meeting in Geneva at the end of June 2017, the Swiss chairmanship will hold the second meeting in Bern in the upcoming weeks. The adoption of the IHRA’s first ever strategy during the initial meeting of member states in Geneva was a great success; now, the task ahead is to define priorities to implement the strategy.
The Swiss chairmanship is organising an additional event on the afternoon of 27 November to present a web application for memoires of Holocaust survivors and a publication containing new findings about Carl Lutz. Together with other members of the Swiss legation in Budapest, Lutz helped save tens of thousands of Jews between 1944 and 1945. The new publication recreates his story on the basis of eyewitness accounts.
In the run-up to the plenary meeting, on 26 November 2017 the IHRA together with the university of teacher education in Bern will hold an international conference focusing on the Nazi regime’s massacre of hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities.
The IHRA is an intergovernmental organisation with 31 member states. It aims to promote research and education about the Holocaust and to keep alive the memory of the victims through commemorations and memorials, particularly in its member states. The IHRA’s institutional partners include the UN, the Council of Europe, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE and UNESCO. Switzerland has been a member of the IHRA since 2004.
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