LONDON — The city’s newly elected Muslim mayor paid respect Sunday to the millions of Jews slain in the Holocaust as his first public engagement in office — and received a hero’s welcome from London’s Jewish community at the end.

Sadiq Khan attended the north London ceremony after a racially charged election campaign during which Conservative Party opponents sought to portray him as an apologist for Islamic extremism.

The annual Yom HaShoah event inside a rugby stadium brought together thousands from London’s Jewish community, including more than 150 Holocaust survivors.

Khan attended alongside Lord Levy, one of Labor’s most senior Jewish supporters and the party’s former lead fund-raiser.

‘‘I was really privileged and moved to meet survivors of the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust as well as their children, their great-grandchildren, and even their great-grandchildren,’’ Khan said after being mobbed by well-wishers.

Associated Press