Governor Andrew Cuomo will travel to Poland for the 75th anniversary ceremony of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp. 

Cuomo will be departing on Sunday afternoon with Eric Gertler, the Empire State Development Corp. president and CEO and Melissa DeRosa, his top aide. The trip comes amid a rash of anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York and the metropolitan area. 

Cuomo this year has called for the passage of a bill that would include hate crimes as a domestic terrorism charge. He also wants to expand the Holocaust Museum at Battery Park City while also adding diversity and tolerance to the state’s school curriculum. 

"The people of New York will never forget the unspeakable Nazi atrocities perpetrated against the Jews, and by participating in this ceremony on behalf of New York State, I will stand tall in honor of the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah,” Cuomo said. “The cancer of hate and intolerance against the Jewish community and anyone perceived to be 'different' is repugnant — and while we pray, march and gather for solidarity, [the] government has an obligation to actually act to put an end to this madness.”