UNITED NATIONS -The United Nations broke with years of protocol and commemorated the 60-year anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, directly linking its own founding with the end of the Holocaust in some of the strongest language ever.
The U.N. General Assembly marked the anniversary with a special session Monday, the first such session in its history dedicated to the Holocaust, and a watershed event for a body that has been accused of an anti-Semitic agenda.
In comments to the body, Secretary-General Kofi Annan directly recognized Jews as the chief victims of the Holocaust, not just one group among many that suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
An entire civilization
which had contributed far beyond its numbers to the cultural and intellectual riches of Europe and the world was uprooted destroyed
laid waste
Annan said.
One U.N. observer said the commemoration could be seen as being linked to Annan's new efforts to push for Israeli-Palestinian peace with the election of a new leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to replace the late Yasser Arafat.
It's a transcendent moment
said Eve Epstein, vice president of National Committee on American Foreign Policy. People have been optimistic about what's been happening in the Middle East and I think the secretary-general has been doing everything he can to build trust so that the peace process can move forward.
Between 1 million and 1.5 million prisoners -most of them Jews -perished in gas chambers or died of starvation and disease at Auschwitz. Overall, 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
The United Nations was created in part because of world leaders' hope that it could help make sure the Holocaust was never repeated. That fact had largely been ignored for years, until Annan stated the fact starkly.
The United Nations must never forget that it was created as a response to the evil of Nazism
or that the horror of the Holocaust helped to shape its mission
he said.
World leaders and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, a Nobel peace prize winner, also wrestled with the question that has haunted the United Nations: whether its member states have the will to stop future genocide. With mass atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region, the question took on new poignancy.
Wiesel, speaking of himself as the Jewish witness, said he knew it was too late for the victims of the Holocaust, but not for today's children
ours and yours.
It is for their sake alone that we bear witness
he said.
The decision to do so was made by Mark Malloch Brown, the new chief of staff, under orders from Annan, according to an internal document obtained by The Associated Press.
Just one Middle East country -Jordan -delivered a speech commemorating the liberation, but more crucially, Arab leaders did not try to block the commemoration. In 2003, Ireland withdrew a General Assembly resolution condemning anti-Semitism because of Muslim and Arab opposition.
