Muslims honour Jewish Holocaust victims at Auschwitz

Muslims, Jews, Christians pray together at Nazi death camp.

AUSCHWITZ: Prominent Muslims joined Jews and Christians at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz on Tuesday in a gesture of interfaith solidarity designed to refute deniers of the Holocaust such as Iran's president.

About 200 dignitaries from across the Islamic world, from Israel, European countries and international organisations such as UNESCO took part in the visit, which included a tour of the site and prayers in Arabic, Yiddish, English and French.

"We must teach our young people in mosques, churches and synagogues about what happened here," Bosnia's Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric told Reuters.

Organisers said Tuesday's visit was mainly aimed at rejecting the view, most forcefully championed by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not uncommon in other parts of the Muslim world, that the Holocaust never really happened.

"We chose to give priority to representatives of the Arab and Muslim world and the reason for this is clear. It is mainly from some of these countries that the speeches and documents come that serve as a vehicle for denial (of the Holocaust), hatred and anti-Semitism," said Anne-Marie Revcolevschi of the Aladdin Project which works to build ties between Jews and Muslims.

"There also exists in these countries currents and people who do not support these outbursts of hatred. We think the time has come to gather them and to let their voices be heard." She added.

The greatest cemetery of mankind

"When a spiritual leader of the Islamic world, comes here to see with his eyes and to know and to feel the atmosphere here, of this greatest cemetery of mankind in history, this will help to deny those who deny the Holocaust." Said the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel Meir Lau.

"It is the proper response to the obscene statements questioning the Holocaust by Iran's President Ahmadinejad." He added.

In sub-zero temperatures the visitors observed a minute of silence at a monument to the victims, laid wreaths and lit candles before being given a guided tour of the Auschwitz-Birkenau site, now a museum, by camp survivors.

Other visitors included former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Muslim and other scholars and the mayors of Paris and of many cities in the Islamic world.