SWC Participates in Macedonian Holocaust Education Program

February 7, 2011

Mark Weitzman, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Director of Government Affairs visited Macedonia as part of a three person delegation representing the 28 member countries of the International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Research and Remembrance (ITF).

Mark Weitzman presenting a copy of his award-winning book, Antisemitism, the Generic Hatred: Essays in Memory of Simon Wiesenthal, to Zoran Petrov, Macedonian Vice-Minister of Foreigh Affairs.	Head of table, L-R: Stephen Smith, Shoah Foundation, Mark Weitzman, Naama Shik, Yad Vashem, with Macedonian educators and officials at working meeting at Ministry of Education.
Press conference with mayor of Bitola, Vladimir Taleski - Naama Shik and Mark Weitzman being interviewed	(Click on photos for hi-resolution)

During the visit he met with Macedonia’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Zoran Petrov, as well as other government officials, educators, and members of the Jewish community. They discussed issues related to the promotion of Holocaust education, remembrance, and research in Macedonia, as well as the international fight against anti-Semitism. The experts attended a ceremony at the Monument of the Deportation of the Jews in Skopje, visited the soon to be opened Memorial Centre of the Holocaust, and commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27) at the Memorial Jewish Cemetery in Bitola, where over 3,000 Jews were deported and murdered in the Holocaust, and where no Jews live today.

In a meeting with Bitola’s mayor, Vladimir Taleski, Weitzman strongly urged that the city restore the Jewish cemetery as a last tribute to the murdered Jews who had lived in harmony with their neighbors for over 400 years.

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