Jerusalem: A delegation of 22 Muslim clerics, including from India, would visit the former Nazi Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland this week as part of a Holocaust awareness programme.

"These imams wield influence in their communities and the idea is that they would have a first hand understanding of what kind of hatred the Nazi`s perpetrated here, and also to spread the message around that humanity should not fail again and be vigilant in the face of similar incitements in the future," a spokesperson for the organisers said.

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The visiting imams are from India, Bosnia, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.

The clerics will also meet with local Jewish religious leaders, including Poland`s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, and local Catholic and Muslim leaders, Holocaust survivors and Righteous Gentiles.

They will also visit a new museum in the Polish capital Warsaw focusing on centuries of Jewish life before the Holocaust.
An understanding of the Holocaust across community leaders can be helpful in preventing mankind from going through similar horrors, the organisers said. More than one million people, mostly European Jews, perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau, operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1940 until it was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945.
The site was one of six German death camps set up in occupied Poland, a country which was home to pre-war Europe`s largest Jewish community. PTI