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Anthony Albanese, centre, at the Holocaust Institute of WA yesterday (Facebook/Patrick Gorman MP)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pledged $6.4 million to build a national Holocaust education centre in Canberra and upgrade a facility in Western Australia that does school workshops. Source: SBS News.

The announcement came as the world marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp yesterday.

“We must never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust,” Mr Albanese said in a statement.

“The centre will serve to educate our young Australians about the horrors of the Holocaust and teach them from an early age that such prejudice, hatred and violence has no place here. Not now, not ever.”

It is expected 165,000 schoolchildren a year will visit the new centre, to be built in partnership with the ACT’s Jewish community.

The Government is matching the Opposition’s $2 million pledge to support the Holocaust Institute of WA, which runs community education about the Holocaust and keeps alive the memory of those who perished.

Mr Albanese also vowed Australia will use the full force of the law to combat “vile” anti-semitism across the nation.

“It (anti-semitism) stands in vile opposition to all we are as a nation and all that we have built — together — over generations,” he said.

Six million Jewish people were systematically murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazi German regime.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus travelled to Poland to attend a service marking the liberation of Auschwitz, which was due to take place early this morning (Australian time). 

About 1.1 million people were murdered in the concentration camp before it was emancipated on 27 January 1945.

FULL STORY

Holocaust education efforts in Australia to get $6.4 million funding boost (AAP via SBS News)

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Holocaust cannot be forgotten or denied, Pope says (OSV News)