Project to counter Holocaust denialConcerned that Holocaust denial is on the rise in the Muslim world, a French Jewish centre on Friday launched an initiative to offer free translations of works like The Diary of Anne Frank.
Dubbed Project Aladdin, the programme by the French Shoah Memorial Foundation is sponsored by former president Jacques Chirac and Jordan's Prince Hassan who have championed efforts to foster understanding between faiths.
"The foundation found that Arabic and Farsi websites espousing Holocaust denial were on the rise," said Anne-Marie-Revcolevschi from the French center.
The sites are not just directed against Israel and show a worrisome trend toward revisionism, she told AFP.
The center plans to offer online (A Book Is Man’s Best Companion | Aladdin Library) copies in Arabic, Farsi and Turkish of a series of works dealing with the Nazi extermination of six million Jews during World War II.
Among these are If This is a Man by Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi, "The Diary of Anne Frank" and Inside the Gas Chambers by Shlomo Venezia, another Auschwitz deportee.
A short history of the Holocaust, a brief introduction to Jewish culture and history and facts about Muslim-Jewish relations "which have not always been torn by conflict" will also be available for downloading, said Revcolevschi.
Works in Farsi and Arabic will also be offered in English and French to broaden minds in the West.
How can people say it didnt happen, did aliens abduct 6 million jews?