Holocaust

Toronto’s Leah Posluns Theatre was packed to capacity on Monday, with close to 300 gathering to mark the opening night of the Toronto Holocaust Museum's Neuberger Holocaust Education Week (HEW), with this year’s instalment cementing 43 years of knowledge and remembrance towards the Shoah.

Like many Christians, Ray Pennings dreams of visiting the Holy Land some day.

Church leaders across Europe marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with calls to remember German Nazi-inflicted sufferings and to counter a new rise in antisemitism and extremism.

"The horror of the extermination of millions of Jews and people of other faiths" before and during World War II "can neither be forgotten nor denied," Pope Francis said.

Shockwaves from the Gaza war impacted Christian-Jewish relations seriously enough to hamper a Montreal commemoration of the Shoah this year, say organizers of the 45th annual event held on April 28.