Berlin - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Tuesday against allowing memories of the Holocaust to fade as the number of survivors of one of the darkest periods in European history dwindles. "The survivors are leaving us. The natural authority of their voices is fading," he said at a ceremony marking the opening of the secretariat of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF).
"We have to make sure that the memory does not fade into the distance, become more abstract or disappears behind the veil of history," Steinmeier said.
The ITF was initiated by former Swedish prime minister Goran Persson in 1998 and formally established at a founding conference in Stockholm in 2000.
It currently has 25 member states and consists of governmental and nongovernmental organizations.
Its aim is to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and promote Holocaust education and research as a means of countering anti-Semitic tendencies in society.
