UNITED NATIONS
- The United States asked Friday for a special
session of the General Assembly in January to mark the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in
World War II.
In a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, U.S. Ambassador
John Danforth requested that the proper steps be taken to
convene a commemorative session of the 191-member assembly.
Danforth said the gathering should be convened Jan. 24, 2005,
three days before a similar event in the former Auschwitz death
camp in Poland. Between 1 million and 1.5 million prisoners -
most of them Jews - perished in gas chambers or died of
starvation and disease at Auschwitz. Advancing Soviet troops
liberated the camp Jan. 27, 1945.
"We believe that it is important that the United Nations, an
organization that rose out of the ashes World War II and the
Holocaust, mark this occasion in a manner fitting its historical
significance," Danforth wrote.
"This is a unique opportunity for us all to remember and
recommit to the founding principles and noble ideals upon which
the United Nations was founded."
The United Nations was founded Oct. 24, 1945.
