"We will always remember." These words were invoked at a moving ceremony in Dublin last night as six candles were lit by the children of Holocaust survivors to remember the six million Jews who perished during the second World War.
"We will always remember," was repeatedly invoked by master of ceremonies Yanky Fachler as two candles were lit for each of the other communities who fell victim to the Nazis - hundreds of thousands of gypsies, disabled people, the gay community, "Blacks, Poles, Slavs" and other ethnic groups, and Christians.
Some 800 people participated in the annual Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in the Mansion House.
Afterwards the Supreme Muslim Council of Ireland issued an apology for the collusion of a "handful of prominent but unrepresentative Muslim clerics (the Muftis of Jerusalem)" with the Nazi regime, although the majority of Muslims supported the Allies.
It expressed "our deepest and heartfelt regret and sadness and our sincere apologies for the suffering that was caused to the Jewish community" in a statement signed by chairman Sheikh Shaheed Satardien and general secretary Mohammed Al Kabour, who attended the ceremony.
The memorial included a minute of silence, prayers for the victims and readings from renowned survivors. The horrors of concentration camps, ghettos, and the rounding up of victims were also recalled.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell apologised again on behalf of the State for Ireland's less-than-generous response to Jewish refugees after the war.
Four survivors living in Ireland spoke of their experience, including Tomi Reichental who survived Bergen-Bensen.
"For over 55 years I didn't speak about the dark days and months we spent there. I just couldn't.
"In the last couple of years I realised that, as one of the last witnesses, I must speak out."
Poet Theo Dorgan spoke of the persecution of the deaf, recalling how one German, Otto Weidt, employed 165 disabled Jews in his factory, hiding 65.
Labour TD Ruairí Quinn, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland, read from Rethinking the Holocaustby Yehuda Bauer.
"What happened before can happen again. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators, possible bystanders.
"With Rwanda, Cambodia, former Yugoslavia and other places, most of us are bystanders who have so far learned very little from the past."
