Holocaust: World leaders attend forum in Israel

World leaders are attending a forum in Jerusalem to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

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More than a million people, mostly Jews, were murdered there by the Nazis during World War Two.

Opening the event at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Israel’s president warned that anti-Semitism and racism continued to be a "malignant disease".

The Russian and French presidents will also make speeches.

Polish President Andrzej Duda refused to attend in protest at not being invited to speak, unlike his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who he has accused of distorting the history of the Holocaust and the war to attack Poland.

The Fifth World Holocaust Forum is the largest diplomatic event in Israel’s history.

More than 40 dignitaries are attending, including Mr Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, US Vice-President Mike Pence and the Prince of Wales, who is making his first official trip to Israel.

The organisers said the focus would be on fighting anti-Semitism today.

In his speech, President Rivlin thanked the leaders "for your commitment to remembering the Shoah [Holocaust], for your commitment to the citizens of the world, to those who believe in the dignity of man".

He told them that their countries should not take for granted the common values that people fought for in World War Two, such as democracy and freedom, saying that Jewish people "remember because we understand that if we do not remember then history can be repeated".

"Anti-Semitism does not only stop with Jews," he warned. "Racism and anti-Semitism is a malignant disease that dismantles people and countries, and no society and no democracy is immune to that."

’Politics of remembrance on display’

By Tom Bateman, BBC News, Jerusalem

The roads surrounding Yad Vashem are locked down. Israeli police carrying automatic weapons are everywhere.

This is a big event in a small country: dozens of heads of state and heads of government are arriving at the site simultaneously.

Each world leader will lay a wreath and the 700-strong audience will hear music composed by Viktor Ullmann, who was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944.

Yad Vashem was established to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. Stories of the industrial scale murder of Jews are all around, some embedded into the stone walls as you walk around.

But the politics of remembrance is on display too.

Outside a banner has been put up reading: "Cease this ‘Holocaust party!" The protesters are angry that too many survivors are living in poverty.

For some, this ceremony is more about the politicians of today than the crimes of the past.

There will also be speeches by representatives of the allied powers that defeated Nazism, although Germany’s president will speak too.

The decision not to give the podium to Mr Duda sparked fury in Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the BBC on Tuesday that it showed "disrespect to Poland and to all the heroes from the Second World War".

"When you hear such statements like [those] made by President Putin, falsifying history completely, this is also our responsibility to give an appropriate reply. If you do not have a floor to give an appropriate reply, the only reaction can be as it happened," he added.

Mr Putin claimed recently that Poland was complicit in the outbreak of World War Two, and while excusing Russian dictator Stalin’s early pact with Hitler he described Poland’s 1930s ambassador to Nazi Germany as "a scumbag and an anti-Semitic pig".

Mr Morawiecki responded with a furious four-page statement that accused Mr Putin of lying about Poland and "trying to rehabilitate" Stalin for his political goals today.