US Vice President Mike Pence and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Israel Thursday morning to participate in the Fifth World Holocaust Forum to commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, joining dozens of other heads of state, as well as many of the crowned heads of Europe, who are already in Jerusalem for the event. On Wednesday evening, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin hosted a gathering of those who had already arrived at his official residence in Jerusalem, inviting them to join him in a joint statement against racism, antisemitism and extremism.

Iranian officials were reacting with hysterical outrage Thursday following a brazen assassination of one of their colleagues, Basij forces commander Abdolhossein Mojaddami, who was leaving his home in Khuzestan province on Wednesday morning when two masked men rode up on a motorcycle and shot him to death in front of his own front door. The assassination of a senior regime figure was noted by analysts who speculated that it might be a sign that fear of the regime, which has for so long held opposition groups in abeyance, may be rapidly eroding.

In the wake of a recent report showing dangerous levels of air pollution in Israel, Wednesday saw an inter-ministerial tenders committees for seawater desalination and solar power plants extend an invitation to companies who are interested in building a new desalinization plant in the Western Galilee and a large solar power plant near Dimona. “This is a significant step, alongside many other initiatives, to realize the ministry’s policies of increasing its targets for electricity generation from renewable energy by 2030,” said Energy Ministry director-general Udi Adiri.

French President Emmanuel Macron had an eventful visit to Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday, getting soaked with rainwater in the process of becoming the first French government leader to visit the Western Wall in almost a quarter of a century while also managing to get filmed getting into a sharp verbal confrontation with his Israeli security escort at the entrance to the Church of St. Anne. Despite reports that he later apologized for speaking harshly and shook hands with his escort, the video of the confrontation, which went viral on the internet, is likely to be the part of his trip to Jerusalem which is most remembered.

A study was published this week in the scientific research journal PLOS One, confirming that the famous “Samaria Ostraca” pottery fragments found by American archaeologist George Andrew Reisner at a dig in the Samarian foothills in 1910 were, in fact, originally produced in the Biblical city of Samaria itself. Many of the fragments have ink-on-pottery inscriptions in Biblical Hebrew recording transactions and delivery schedules for various merchandise including olive oil and wine.

In April 1944, two young Jewish prisoners escape from Auschwitz. They reached safety and reported in detail the way Auschwitz operated to Jewish officials, who then passed the document to the U.S. War Refugee Board in Switzerland. They hoped to warn the Jews of Hungary, who were the next group the Germans and their collaborators intended to transport to Auschwitz for certain death. But throughout the rest of 1944, the trains to Auschwitz kept running.  The lesson here is that the Jews were basically on their own. Israel’s ability to defend itself represents a guarantee that never again will the Jews wait in vain for friends to save those in peril.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Ground Forces are organized around headquarters that are meant to coordinate the operations of Iranian paramilitary forces and support the Quds Force’s use of proxy groups such as Iraqi Shi’a militias abroad. Their basing in Iran indicates a primary focus on suppressing internal unrest and waging irregular warfare in the rear of an invader rather than on defending against an invasion conventionally. The fact that the Iranian leadership has not yet had to use them on a large scale to suppress growing domestic unrest suggests that the regime still has a potent reserve force to ensure its survival even if the unrest grows considerably, as long as it does not also face a requirement for large-scale military operations abroad.

Today, we take time to remember what took place on January 27th, 1945, when Auschwitz, the largest Nazi Death Camp was liberated by the Red Army. Join us at the ICEJ Home for Holocaust Survivors as we hear from Sara, who lived to tell her story.