BUCHAREST, Romania (Press Release) — Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday laid a wreath at the Holocaust memorial to Romanian Jews. Head of the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania Alexandru Florian also laid a wreath.
The monument, designed by Peter Jacobi was inaugurated on October 9, 2009, Romania’s national Holocaust remembrance day, marking the beginning of deportations of Jews to Transnistria in 1941.
In 2005 the Romanian authorities undertook to build a monument at the recommendation of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, who was born in Romania and survived Auschwitz. The Wiesel Commission recommended that Romania should acknowledge responsibility for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma, and Sinti on its territory during the Second World War.
Later, Rivlin laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Bucharest.
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Preceding provided by the Israeli Government Press Office.