On International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, Croatia's government joined in commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in which 1.1 million people were killed with the aim of extermination of the Jews in that darkest episode of the history of the humankind.

The day serves as the obligation of the current and future generations to build a society free of exclusivity, intolerance and violence.

We pay due respect to the victims of the Holocaust, that horrendeous genocide in which some six million Jews were killed, every time when we as individuals and as the society stand up against any form of discrimination and when we cherish the values of equality and dialogue, says the government.

117 Croatians among Righteous Among the Nations

We are taught about that by the glorious example of 117 Croatians who deserved the title of the Righteous Among the Nations after they risked their lives during the Holocaust to save their Jewish compatriots from extermination by the Nazis, the government says.

The awareness and education of the youth about the atrocities from the past and particularly about the Holocaust is crucial for understanding the causes and consequences of the most painful events in the European and global history, says the cabinet of the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

This is our human and moral obligation to bring to life the message “Never Again” on which the post-war democratic Europe was built, the government says calling for building the modern society free of any form of hatred or intolerance.

Denial of crimes is an act of denying the human being and this represents the negation of all European values and fundamental human rights. The huge pain and suffering caused by Auschwitz and many other Nazi camps bind us to resist any attempt of denying such crimes, the government says.

In this context, the government calls for remembering the notorius Ustasha-led camp in Jasenovac in which thousands of Jews and members of other ethnic group as well as Croatian anti-Fascists and democrats were killed.

The government underlines that the Jasenovac camp is the painful and tragic part of the Croatian history, and therefore remembering victims of that camp and strongly condemning that atrocity “are part of our culture of remembrance” and also a pledge for our European future.