Jewish leaders cheer international Holocaust day

JERUSALEM — Jewish leaders are expressing satisfaction over a United Nations decision to establish an international Holocaust day but said that such a gesture is long overdue. The International Day of Commemoration will be held every year on Jan. 27, the anniversary of the 1945 Allied forces’ liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The resolution, passed Oct. 31, encourages member countries to promote Holocaust education and activities that will help their citizens better understand its implications as a means of preventing future acts of genocide. The resolution also renounces the practice of Holocaust denial, whereby people either deny that the Holocaust ever happened or insist that its scale — the number of Jewish victims, for example — has been grossly exaggerated.