Russian Christians, Jews urge country to establish Holocaust Memorial Day

Christians and Jews in Russia called on the government on Thursday to establish National Holocaust Memorial Day.

The call was made in the Memorial Synagogue near Moscow's Poklonnaya Gora, where Christian and Jewish organizations gathered for a roundtable to discuss dialogue between the two religions.

"The participants of the roundtable declare that further Jewish-Christian dialogue should be open, trust-based, long-term and be translated into practical activity, which is able to strengthen the tolerance of Russian society," a joint statement said.

The practical activity, the participants said, should be related to commemorating the victims of the Holocaust and include educational programs as well as establishing monuments and memorials in places of mass killings of Jews during WWII.

"We call on the Russian president, the Federation Council and the State Duma [the upper and lower houses of the Russian parliament] to introduce National Holocaust Memorial Day to be declared on January 27, the date when [the Soviet] Army liberated the Auschwitz death camp," the statement said.

The UN declared January 27, when the Soviet Red Army liberated the largest Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, International Holocaust Memorial Day in 2005.