Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird kicked off his first full day in Israel by attending the opening of a new Holocaust education facility in Jerusalem.

Baird says the new seminars wing of the International School for Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem will play a key role in ensuring humanity doesn’t forget the lessons of genocide.

And he says Israel has no better friend in the world than Canada.

Baird and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will spend the next several days visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The campus holds seminars each year for educators from 55 countries around the world and Israel, and develops country-specific and custom-made tools for different age groups in more than 20 languages.

Jewish philanthropist Joseph Gottdenker, himself a Holocaust survivor, says Yad Vashem gives a voice and a name to each person who perished, “and restores to them the dignity of living history.”

“Holocaust education enables us to remember the lessons of the past and provides guidance to a more tolerant, hopeful and brighter future,” Gottdenker said.

In 2011, the school hosted 67 seminars for educators and lay leaders around the world, twice the numbers held in recent years.

Baird, a black skull cap perched on his head, emphasized the importance of Yad Vashem and its new 4,100-square-metre facility in documenting and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust.

“There is no better friend to Israel than Canada,”Baird said. “We shall always be there for you, and in front of you.”

(Source: The Star)