IHRA Meetings

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) will hold its first semiannual Plenary meeting under the UK Chairmanship from 12-15 May 2014 in London.

For four days next week, experts and policymakers from around the world representing 31 member countries, five observer countries, and six permanent observer organizations will meet to discuss the Holocaust as a contemporary political issue.  The unprecedented character of the Holocaust will always hold universal meaning, and IHRA member countries pledge to strengthen their efforts to promote education, remembrance and research about the Holocaust.

IHRA Chair Sir Andrew Burns will meet with IHRA experts and governmental representatives to discuss a number of important issues, including advancement of IHRA’s multi-year work plan, IHRA’s grant funding strategy, and outreach to countries around the world.  IHRA experts will also meet with members of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Holocaust Commission, continue work on crucial topics such as antisemitism and Holocaust denial, the genocide of the Roma, and the Holocaust and other genocides. 

In advance of the Plenary meetings, an IHRA Conference on the Genocide of the Roma in cooperation with the Institute of Education’s Centre for Holocaust Education will be held on 10-11 May in London.  Colleagues from across Europe and the world will lead workshops and share teaching and learning materials suitable for classroom use. The conference will be concluded by an expert round table discussion focusing on the connection between the historical past and prejudice and discrimination today. 

The purpose of IHRA is to bring political and social leaders together to learn from the Holocaust for the benefit of citizens of member countries and the international public.  IHRA and the UK Chairmanship look forward to further progress and concrete outcomes from the London meetings.