The World War II Nazi extermination of six million Jews in Europe was "the most despicable tragedy in history" Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio stated on Wednesday - 76 years after Allied forces liberated the Auschwitz death camp.
"Seventy-six years ago on 27 January, 1945, the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp was liberated. On that symbolic date, a glimmer of hope came after the most despicable tragedy in history," Di Maio wrote in a letter.
"We actively remember the Shoah ('catastrophe' in Hebrew), standing united with the Italy's Jewish communities and those throughout the world in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day."
Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis murdered close to a million Jews at the Auschwitz complex camps located in occupied Poland.
Italy's foreign ministry is once again holding "numerous" events in its embassies, consulates and cultural institutes around the world this year, including movie screenings and seminars "to foster reflection and debate on these tragic events," wrote Di Maio.
"It is essential to remember these events of the past which must not be repeated. This is the belief behind the initiatives being organised by the foreign ministry on this poignant day."
