President Michael D Higgins has warned of a rise in anti-Semitism and racism across Europe at an event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

President Higgins also spoke of the surge in support for extreme right-wing political parties in a number of countries.

Speaking at the National Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration in Dublin’s Mansion House, President Higgins urged people to work together to ensure hatred does not “spread its dark shadow”.

Ceremonies are being held across the world to remember the six million Jews and others killed in Adolf Hitler’s notorious death camps.

Today, 27 January is Holocaust Memorial Day, #HMD2019.



As he did in 2015 and 2012, President Higgins will tonight address the annual commemoration in Dublin.

See details at https://t.co/XoTPeqReyE pic.twitter.com/Po99UaV4JG — President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) January 27, 2019

The event marks the date when the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland were liberated by Soviet forces on January 27 1945.

Also attending the event in Dublin were Holocaust survivors Suzi Diamond, Tomi Reichental and Walter Sekules, as well as Jadzia Kaminska, who represented her father Jan Kaminski.

Mr Higgins first spoke at the memorial day in 2012 – an event that has taken place annually since 2000, after Ireland signed an international agreement to commit to the remembrance of the Holocaust.

He said: “Following World War Two, nations around the globe resolved to create political and economic structures and build international institutions that would ensure the horrors wrought by two world wars would never reoccur.

We are witnessing a growing rise of various forms of a corrupted and distorted nationalism.

“Countries across Europe have seen a rise in electoral support for political parties declaiming an extreme, exclusionary message.

“Refugees, immigrant communities and other minority groups are increasingly viewed as a threat to the rights of the majority, and many achievements by those who have fought tirelessly for human rights are under threat by a new generation of extremists who view those universal rights as a threat to their own individual rights.

“The poison of anti-Semitism is not absent from their rhetoric.

“Those forms of strident nationalism and populism, not to be confused with the emancipatory popular movements of the past that sought universal provision, continue to spread across Europe and other parts of the world.

“As anti-Semitism and racism once again begin to rise across Europe we must remember the Holocaust collectively and work together to ensure that hatred and inhumanity is not allowed to once again spread its dark shadow across Europe and the world.”

- Press Association