For the first time, the United Nations and Israel have jointly issued an International Holocaust Remembrance Day stamp.
The day itself was marked on Monday following a UN decision in 2005 to launch an annual memorial. The stamp, designed by internationally known graphic artist Matias Delfino, will be sold for NIS 4.60 in Israel.
The stamp was a joint project of the Israel Postal Company's Philatelic Service and the UN's philatelic service. The image is of two white-and-yellow flowers, the stems of which meld into barbed wire like that on the fences in concentration camps. The postal sheet, which contains nine identical stamps, has a quote from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon relating to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for the destruction of Israel.
Ban is quoted as saying that one can never allow the denial of historical facts, especially when it relates to such an important matter as the Holocaust. One can never permit a call for the destruction of a nation or a state, he says. "I hope that all members of the international community will honor this basic principle, both by word and by act."
Israel Postal Company director-general Avi Hochman said the stamp was another step in memorializing the major tragic event in the history of the Jewish people and mankind in general.
"As the son of Holocaust survivors, I am pleased to be given the opportunity of being involved in this joint philatelic issue at a time when extremists declare that the Holocaust never happened. The number of Jews around the world today has been influenced very much by the mass murders of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. These stamps will be our ambassadors around the world and carry the message: 'Remember and never forget,'" Hochman said.
Ambassador to the UN Danny Gillerman added that "the stamp issue will help in the struggle to win worldwide recognition of the fact that the future generations must be educated never to forget the Holocaust, and that Israel will continue to demand at every possible forum wide international awareness of what happened."
