On Monday, wreaths were laid at the monument at the former Skopje Monopoly to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the deportation of 7,144 Macedonian Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. Present at the event were President Stevo Pendarovski, caretaker Prime Minister Talat Xhaferi, Jewish Community President Pepo Levi, and Israeli Ambassador to North Macedonia, Simona Frankel.

During the commemorative event, Pepo Levi, President of the Jewish Community, paid tribute to the 7,144 Jews from Macedonia who lost their lives in the Treblinka death camp. He mentioned specific individuals and highlighted that these Jews from Shtip, Bitola, and Skopje never returned to their hometowns.

Caretaker Prime Minister Talat Xhaferi emphasized that their presence at the event aimed to send a message preventing the recurrence of such tragic events. He expressed solidarity against intolerance, anti-Semitism, fascism, exclusionary aggression, and hate speech.

Simona Frankel, Israel’s Ambassador to North Macedonia, emphasized the significant meaning of this year’s commemoration and refrained from drawing parallels between the Holocaust and the events of October 7. She noted that the Holocaust represented the greatest tragedy in modern Jewish history, while the events of March 11, 1943, marked the worst day for Israel since its establishment. Frankel represented not only the democratic independent state of Israel but also spoke on behalf of the descendants of the Jewish community living in Israel today.

She concluded by recounting the tragic fate of the 7,144 men, women, and children who were loaded onto trains on the evening of March 11, 1943, by the Nazi occupation regime and sent to Treblinka extermination camp, where they all perished in gas chambers.