By Roy Mabasa  Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines Rafael Harpaz called on the younger generation on Monday to continue remembering the millions of Holocaust victims in view of the rise in anti-Semitism in many parts of the world, including in some Muslim countries. (WIKIPEDIA / MANILA BULLETIN) “The number of Holocaust survivors is decreasing each day and in a decade or so, there will be few of them to tell the story to the younger generation,” Ambassador Harpaz said in his welcome remarks at the International Day of Commemoration of Holocaust Victims at the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) campus in Manila. Speaking before diplomats, members of the academe, and students, Harpaz recalled the incidents of Jan. 27, 1945, when the Red Army of the then-Soviet Union liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, freeing a number of Jewish people from the “largest killing field in the history of humanity.” “We remember with deep gratitude the day of the liberation, the entry of the Red Army into Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the immense sacrifice of the Allied forces,” he said. In commemorating the Holocaust, Harpaz mentioned the adoption of a United Nations resolution designating January 27 as an International Day of Commemoration in honor of those who perished in the genocide. The Israeli diplomat also remembered the story of the 1,300 Jews who left Nazi Germany at the onset of World War II and were given safe haven in the Philippines, courtesy of then-President Manuel Quezon’s adoption of an open-door policy to save Jews from persecution in Europe. “It was the time when most leaders of the world preferred to shut their eyes and doors towards the Jews, whom most of them eventually perished during the Holocaust,” Harpaz said. Of the 1,300 who were saved by Quezon’s open-door policy, one of them – Margot Cassel Pins – was a graduate of the PWU. Then seven years old, Margot never forgot the school nor the Philippines that became her and her family’s refuge. Now close to 90, Margot visited the Philippines twice, first in 2015 as a special guest of the PWU alumni, and just weeks ago on a private trip. For his part, United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) Country Director Iori Kato reiterated the call of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for everyone to remember “one of the most heinous crimes of our time: the systematic killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators in the Holocaust.” “We pledge we will never forget. We vow to tell their stories and honor them by defending everyone’s right to live with dignity in a just and peaceful world,” Kato said in his keynote address. The UN official echoed Harpaz’s concern on the rise and resurgence of anti-Semitism, religious bigotry, racism, and prejudice. “Seventy-five years on, neo-Nazis and white supremacists are resurgent, and there are continued efforts to diminish the Holocaust and deny or downplay the responsibility of perpetrators.”