Pope Leo made an appeal for a world free from antisemitism, prejudice, oppression and persecution on Wednesday, before linking the message to International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed the day before.

Speaking at the conclusion of his weekly audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, the pope recalled the Jan. 27 commemoration honoring the millions of Jews and others murdered.

RABBI ATTACKED ON NYC STREET ON INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Pope Leo called it an "annual occasion of painful remembrance" and urged the international community to remain vigilant so that "the horror of genocide may never again be inflicted upon any people" and so that societies rooted in "mutual respect and the common good" can be built.

"I ask the Almighty for the gift of a world no longer marked by antisemitism, nor by prejudice, oppression, and persecution against any human being," the pope said.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945.

The Holocaust resulted in the systematic murder of six million Jews as well as millions of others in World War II.

ANTISEMITISM IS BECOMING 'NORMAL,' WITH JEWISH TEENS PAYING THE PRICE

On Jan. 27, as he left his residence in Castel Gandolfo, Leo also spoke to reporters.

When asked about rising tensions in the Middle East and the deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier to the region amid protests and killings in Iran at the hands of the regime, Leo emphasized the need "to pray hard for peace."

"We little ones can raise our voices and always seek dialogue rather than violence to resolve problems, especially on this day that commemorates the Shoah," he added.

In a post on X marking the Holocaust memorial, Pope Leo reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s commitment to the principles outlined in Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration rejecting all forms of antisemitism.

WHY HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE MATTERS AS HISTORY IS REWRITTEN AND ANTISEMITISM SURGES

He stressed that the Church "rejects any discrimination or harassment based on ethnicity, language, nationality, or religion" and encouraged dialogue rather than violence as a means toward solving conflicts.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Vatican for comment.

When Col. (Res.) E.K. puts on his uniform at the age of 57, he carries more than the weight of command. He carries the story of two families nearly erased from the map of Europe.

As the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945, the deputy commander of Israel’s Jerusalem and Central District in the Home Front Command says the past is not distant history. For him, it lives in memory, in service, and in the urgency of defending a Jewish state he believes remains the only place where Jews are truly protected.

"Both of my parents are Holocaust survivors," E.K., whose picture is blurred for security reasons, told Fox News Digital. "My father came from a large Orthodox Jewish family in western Poland. Before the war, the extended family numbered around 700 people. After the Holocaust, only my father and two cousins remained; three people out of 700."

101-YEAR-OLD KRISTALLNACHT SURVIVOR WARNS CURRENT ERA 'EQUIVALENT TO 1938' ON ANNIVERSARY OF NAZI RIOT

After surviving Auschwitz, his father joined the Betar movement and attempted to reach the Land of Israel in 1946 aboard the ship Theodor Herzl. He was detained by British authorities, imprisoned at the Atlit camp and exiled to Cyprus for nearly two years.

Only with the declaration of Israel’s independence did he finally arrive.

"He enlisted, fought in the War of Independence and four additional wars and served in the reserves for 55 years," E.K. said.

On his mother’s side, the losses were no less devastating. Her parents and sisters were taken from their home in eastern Poland after neighbors informed on them.

"They were forced to dig their own grave beneath a pear tree and were executed by gunfire," he said.

The Holocaust was rarely discussed openly in his childhood home, E.K. said, but its presence was constant. Now, he worries about a different silence.

"We are 80 years after the Holocaust, and the people who can say ‘I was there. I saw’ are disappearing," he said. "Therefore, the duty of remembrance is our duty."

CHRISTIAN PASTORS, INFLUENCERS JOIN 1,000-STRONG ISRAEL MISSION BACKING JEWISH STATE, FIGHTING ANTISEMITISM

That sense of responsibility shaped his life. E.K., a father of four daughters and a grandfather, has served more than 36 years in Israel’s reserve forces, completing more than 3,600 days of duty.

"Ten years of reserve duty in total," he said. In Israel, reservists are legally exempt from duty at age 45. E.K. chose to continue, "When they call me, I will immediately arrive." 

Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, he was mobilized once again.

"What we saw on Oct. 7 was killing for the sake of killing," he said. "Not to conquer territory or change reality. It was hatred for the sake of hatred."

WHY CHRISTIANS MUST STAND WITH ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE AMID SURGING ANTISEMITISM

Since then, he has commanded rescue and heavy engineering units operating in the Gaza Envelope, inside Gaza, and in the north. His forces have carried out body identification, rescue operations and clearing missions aimed at eliminating terrorist hiding places.

"In the next few days we are going back into Gaza again for clearing and demolition," he said.

Despite the trauma, he says the reserve system reflects something powerful about Israeli society. "What is beautiful about the reserves is that people can hold very different political opinions, and everyone still comes and works as one body," he said.

E.K. reflected on what he believes history is teaching again. "We see now that antisemitism existed and will continue to exist in the future," he said.

He pointed to the global reaction to Israel since Oct. 7. "There are terrible things happening in other places. For example, the Iranian regime crackdown on its own people, and you do not see demonstrations like this, but when it involves Israel and Jews, there is an outcry," he said.

For E.K., remembrance is not only about mourning the dead. It is about protecting the living. "The place of every Jew is here in Israel," he added. "And we must always remain united and strong. We must be here in our land, be strong and united and ensure that ‘never again’ truly means never again," he said.

Leaders from around the world gathered in Jerusalem on Tuesday to highlight the global surge in antisemitism on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked annually on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi extermination camp.

An opening gala was held on Monday, during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the West’s democratic civilization is under threat from a destructive ideology that has infiltrated every country in Western Europe and the United States.

"They want to destroy the West as we know it. And they agree on one thing. What is the thing that they agree on? World War Jew. To conduct a world war, first against the Jews and against the Jewish state," he said.

ISRAEL WILL HONOR THE LATE CHARLIE KIRK WITH AWARD FOR OPPOSING ANTISEMITISM

"And for the radical Muslims, they are right, because there would be no West in the Middle East if the Jewish state is eradicated. There would be no obstacle for the further invasion of Europe if the Jewish state doesn't exist. And it also appeals to their internal hatred of the Jews, which has common roots with antisemitism over the centuries," Netanyahu added.

Among the prominent international figures attending the conference were Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Hungarian Minister for European Union Affairs János Bóka and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

"Antisemitism is rooted in a spiritual disease of raw evil," Huckabee told Fox News Digital. "It’s the bigotry of believing oneself to be superior to another, which is the essence of all forms of irrational hate and racism. We all should be speaking up and standing up against it," he said.

"Hating the Jews today is hating Christians tomorrow and some other group the next. It’s a cancer that is never satisfied until every healthy human relationship is destroyed. It originates in hell. Any and all efforts to identify such darkness is helpful. Being quiet about it is to accept it and agree with it," the ambassador added.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was the first speaker to address the conference on Tuesday, warning of a deteriorating reality for Jewish communities worldwide.

"The same old plague has been let loose on our society once again. The rationale may be different, but it is the same ancient poison, it has taken many forms, but it has always carried the same name, antisemitism," he said.

ISRAELI OFFICIALS HEAP BLAME ON AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT AFTER BONDI BEACH SHOOTING: 'COUNTLESS WARNING SIGNS'

Herzog noted that Jews now feel compelled to hide their identities on the streets of London and Paris, and that Jewish worshipers must be protected on Saturday mornings from Toronto to Boston to Buenos Aires.

He cited the killing of Jewish worshipers in Manchester, England, on Yom Kippur, the murder of innocents at a Chanukah celebration in Sydney, Australia, and the isolation and harassment of Jewish students on university campuses across the U.S. and Europe.

"When this happens," Herzog said, "we are failing to meet our vow. We are failing to meet our duties to humanity."

Herzog also addressed concerns in the United States, citing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. "To deny the Jewish people and only the Jewish people the right to self-determination in their national homeland is antisemitism - even if you are the mayor of the city with the most Jews outside Israel," he said.

ISIS, IRAN ESCALATING GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST JEWS, ISRAEL SPY CHIEF SAYS

The conference, titled Generation Truth, and hosted by Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli, focused on three primary manifestations of modern antisemitism: violent Islamist antisemitism, progressive antisemitism that seeks to delegitimize Israel and exclude Jews from public life, and far-right antisemitism, which has gained renewed visibility in recent years.

On Tuesday, Chikli drew a connection between Nazi ideology and what he described as "Islamo-Nazism," which he said underpins the worldview of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Eighty-one years have passed, and the Jewish people have still not fully recovered from the horrific campaign of annihilation carried out by Nazi Germany. Eighty-one years have passed and yet an axe is still raised against us seeking to destroy the small Jewish state and to harm Jews at every point on the globe, from the kibbutzim and communities in southern Israel still scared by the barbaric Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 to Manchester and Sydney," Chikli said.

"This conference seeks to banish political correctness… and to mobilize all essential forces in the ideological and physical fight against the modern heirs of the Nazi," he continued.

Also speaking at the conference was Sylvan Adams, president of the World Jewish Congress for the Israel region, who told Fox News Digital that on Oct. 8, 2023 — before the war in Gaza began and while Israel was still counting its dead — demonstrations took place across the globe celebrating the Hamas-led massacre.

He blamed the events on several countries that he said are part of an organized campaign led by Qatar, which he said serves as a frontline for the Muslim Brotherhood, with backing from Iran and, more recently, China — actors he argued exploit Israel and the Jewish people to intimidate and overturn Western society.

"After Israel appeared wounded and vulnerable on Oct. 7, they activated a massive, long-prepared campaign — investing vast resources, infiltrating institutions, and planting paid operatives in Western cities in an effort to deliver a final blow. But we see how deeply mistaken they were," Adams said.

"We need to push back and remind leaders in the West, institutional leaders as well as political leaders, that we are under attack. Our way of life, our freedoms are under attack. It’s not Israel’s fight, this is a clash of civilizations, we are fighting for all of the West," he added.

FIRST ON FOX: Multiple documents released by Argentine President Javier Milei last year reveal how Argentina’s search for Nazi war criminals, who found refuge in the country during and after the Second World War, were able to avoid arrest and, for the most part, live ordinary lives.

While Argentina’s Peronist government sympathized and often knew of Nazi criminals hiding in their territory – often under their auspices – once the populist regime fell, the South American nation half-heartedly tried to keep tabs on the war criminals hiding there. 

Though many high-profile cases went nowhere, the case of Hitler’s henchman Martin Bormann is exemplary in showing how inefficient Argentina was in its investigations.

ARGENTINA REVEALS SECRET WWII FILES ON HITLER'S HENCHMEN WHO FLED BEFORE, AFTER THE WAR

Bormann was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime, despite his relatively low profile to the public. He used his position as private secretary to Hitler and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery to control the flow of documents personally received by Hitler and who had access to him.

Through enormous administrative influence, he shaped policy and controlled what Hitler saw, who he met, and advised on major decisions. Bormann supported extreme antisemitic measures and was one of the masterminds of the Aryanization project. Bormann disappeared in May 1945 during the fall of Berlin. For decades, it was speculated he had fled to Argentina along the ratlines — escape routes facilitated by Nazi sympathizers. Bormann was sentenced to death in absentia during the Nuremberg Trials.

The files show that Bormann was one of the very few Nazis the Argentinians actively tried to pursue and bring to justice. However, most of the leads came from sensationalist press articles often devoid of factual and actionable intelligence beyond the mere mention that he was hiding in Argentina.

The files meticulously depict intelligence agencies trying to corroborate such reports and assert whether the floated false aliases matched the actual man in Argentina. Agencies followed information coming from reports in the Argentine, U.S., British and Brazilian press, along with some translations from German-language media published in Argentina by the émigré community who were suspected of harboring Nazi sympathizers.

The articles triggered extensive paper trails between the ministry of justice, intelligence bodies, border and customs agencies, the federal police, and local authorities, but were often disconnected from one another, or took a long time to be referred to the various sub-offices for action.

ARGENTINA REVEALS SECRET WWII FILES ON HITLER'S HENCHMEN WHO FLED BEFORE, AFTER THE WAR

As a result, multiple similar searches were carried out at various points haphazardly and a tangle of bureaucracy made authorities play catch up to press reports rather than conduct independent and rational investigations. The files are a testament that the hunt for Nazis in South America was shaped by rumor, miscommunication, mistaken identities, Cold War politics and intense media speculation.

Some of the information reviewed by Fox News Digital showed authorities took rumors such as a hunt for Bormann in the jungles of Peru, Colombia and Brazil as credible. A case of an elderly German man detained in Colombia in 1972 as Bormann (later cleared and released) despite voiced skepticism by Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal is also part of the files.

The diplomatic shockwaves that followed Israel’s Mossad seizing Adolf Eichmann in Argentina left local officials acutely sensitive to international scrutiny, recasting the search for Bormann as a bid to ensure the country would not be embarrassed on the world stage a second time.

A pivotal—and ultimately flawed—lead in the Bormann files emerged in 1955, when police, relying on fading testimonies about an illegal German laborer, along with rumors, seized correspondence and aging witnesses, began pursuing a man named Walter Wilhelm Flegel.

Flegel had arrived through Chile, was missing an arm due to an accident, and had been previously arrested and brought to court twice on assault and robbery charges. Suspicions led to his arrest in Mendoza in 1960 despite his complete dissemblance, lack of education, long presence in the country, age gaps and missing factual connections that could tie him to Bormann. Notwithstanding such mismatching profiles — and fingerprints — it still took a week for Argentinians to be convinced Flegel was not Bormann and free him.

Ultimately, despite continued rumors, and Argentina’s singular resolve in finally arresting one of the many Nazi fugitives thought to be in the country, human remains found in Berlin in 1972 were a match and confirmed Bormann’s death during the city’s fall through dental and cranial records. Later, in the 1990s, further DNA testing confirmed the remains found in Berlin indeed belonged to Bormann, bringing the misdirected Argentinian search finally to a close.