JERUSALEM -- Leaders from almost 50 countries gathered Thursday in Jerusalem to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz and, drawing on the memory of its horrors, to mount a united stand against the resurgence of anti-Semitism around the world.
Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., were among the dignitaries and delegations filling Yad Vashem, the city's somber memorial to the Holocaust's 6 million Jewish victims, for the World Holocaust Forum, one of the largest international events ever hosted by Israel.
Leaders of World War II's four allied powers were scheduled to speak, including Pence, Britain's Prince Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
About 100 of the fast-dwindling number of Holocaust survivors were present. Now is the time, organizers said, to turn honoring the victims of the Holocaust into a real-time call to action.
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"Ladies and gentlemen, I commit that those words, 'Never Again,' will not be an empty slogan," Netanyahu said, "but will an ongoing decree, an imperative that must be followed."
"I am concerned that we have yet to see a unified and resolute stance against the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet, a regime that openly seeks to develop nuclear weapons and annihilate the one and only Jewish state," he said.
"For the Jewish people, Auschwitz is more than the ultimate symbol of evil. It is also the ultimate symbol of Jewish powerlessness ... Today we have a voice. We have a land, and we have a shield."
Pence also invoked Iran, calling on the world to stand strong against "the one government in the world that denies the Holocaust as a matter of state policy and threatens to wipe Israel off the map."
In a nod toward Poland and others, Putin said the Holocaust would only serve as a warning to future generations if told in full, "without exemptions and omissions."
Netanyahu, who seeks Putin's support in holding off Iranian forces in neighboring Syria and in securing the release of a young Israeli woman imprisoned on drug charges in Russia, hosted Putin for the dedication of a monument honoring the nearly 900-day Nazi siege of Leningrad.
The city, now known as St. Petersburg, is Putin's hometown.
"We mustn't for even one second blur the sacrifice and the contribution of the former Soviet Union," Netanyahu said.
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President Donald Trump did not attend the forum. But along with other heads of state, the president did provide a comment to be collected in a commemorative album about the event.
"We have a fundamental and collective duty to ensure that each new generation knows the truth," Trump wrote.
"The lessons of the Holocaust must forever be engrained in the consciousness so that we can fulfill our solemn and sacred promise that such evil and hatred will never again come to power."
Pence also was scheduled to meet with Netanyahu, and the prime minister personally welcomed Pelosi and the U.S. congressional delegation.
Both also met briefly with Benny Gantz, the former Israeli army chief who is Netanyahu's main rival in a yearlong political standoff.
Information for this article was contributed by Steve Hendrix, Ruth Eglash, Ashley Parker and Isabelle Khurshudyan of The Washington Post; and by Aron Heller of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/24/2020