On January 27, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day was commemorated in Geneva, Berlin, United States, United Kingdom and many other places around the world, remembering the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945. January 27 was chosen to commemorate it as the date of liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland by the Red Army in 1945.
The day remembers the killing of six million Jews and 11 million others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. It was designated by United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 on November 1, 2005. The resolution came after a special session held earlier that year on January 24 to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust. There also proclaimed a Holocaust week by United Nations starting from January 26. However, not all countries commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, some countries hold it on other days. For instance, Israel commemorates it on April 27, which they introduce it as Yom HaShoah.
“Memory, dignity and justice”
The guiding theme of this year is “Memory, Dignity and Justice”, and it aims to encourage action to challenge hatred, strengthen solidarity and champion compassion, as the U.N. explains on its website.
“The writing of history and the act of remembering brings dignity and justice to those whom the perpetrators of the Holocaust intended to obliterate,” it says. “Safeguarding the historical record, remembering the victims, challenging the distortion of history often expressed in contemporary antisemitism, are critical aspects of claiming justice after atrocity crimes.”
Among the many ceremonies, Berlin Holocaust Day ceremony was held on late January 27 with the participation of public officials including Israeli Knesset President Mickey Levy, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz participated in. They mainly attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.
The UNESCO ceremony was held on 27 January at Geneva with high-level remarks by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, H.E. Mr Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, and H.E. Mr Isaac Herzog, President of the State of Israel, and Mr Piotr Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
This year’s ceremony was very timely because there is Holocaust denial reports from many parts of the world including US. And some incidents are connected with attacking Jews. As NPR news web reports, just two weeks ago a rabbi and three others were held hostage for hours at a synagogue in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas. And a Texas district made headlines in October after an administrator reportedly instructed teachers to provide students with “opposing” views of the Holocaust. So the International Holocaust Remembrance Day also aims to promote Holocaust education, apart from remembering the victims.
Many messages
US President Joe Biden marked the day by inviting Auschwitz survivor Bronia Brandman — who lost her parents and four of five siblings and didn’t speak of her experience for half a century — to share her story at the White House. Biden said in a statement that the world has an obligation to honor victims, learn from survivors, pay tribute to rescuers and carry on the lessons of the Holocaust, a charge he described as especially urgent since fewer and fewer survivors remain.
“From the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, to a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, we are continually and painfully reminded that hate doesn’t go away; it only hides,” Biden said. “And it falls to each of us to speak out against the resurgence of antisemitism and ensure that bigotry and hate receive no safe harbor, at home and around the world.”
He added that it is imperative to “teach accurately about the Holocaust and push back against attempts to ignore, deny, distort, and revise history,” noting that the U.S. co-sponsored a U.N. resolution this month charging the global community with combating Holocaust denial through education.
He further said: “It was a destructive force so unimaginable that it gave rise to an entirely new vocabulary of evil: words like ‘holocaust,’ ‘genocide,’ and ‘crimes against humanity.’ We join with nations of the world to grieve one of the darkest chapters in human history—and to bear witness for future generations so that we can make real our sacred vow: ‘never again.’”
He ended his statement as follows: “We cannot redeem the past. But, on this day, as we mourn humanity’s capacity to inflict inhuman cruelty, let us commit to making a better future and to always upholding the fundamental values of justice, equality, and diversity that strengthen free societies.”
Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, has also released a message to mark the occasion: “Whenever this history is questioned, whenever violence is done to the memory of the victims, the rise of anti-Semitism and hate speech is encouraged, an everyday scourge of Jewish communities around the world. More than ever, we must therefore be vigilant. It is our shared responsibility to protect the truth, and to keep alive the memory of all those who suffered under the Nazi regime; to support research and documentation that can confront the fantasies of fanatics with the reality of history; and to study and teach the Holocaust, so that education may prevent anti-Semitism and all forms of racism.”
Other activities
Among the UNESCO ceremonies to mark the Holocaust Remembrance Day, one was a photographic exhibition titled ‘Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors’ held on display on the fences of UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from January 20 to February 4, 2022. The exhibition showcased over 50 contemporary photos of Holocaust survivors and their families, shining a light on the full lives they have lived and the collective responsibility to cherish their stories.
An online panel discussion was also held on the Remembrance Day at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris highlighting the work and legacy of Jewish artists before and during the Second World War. There, a group of international experts discussed the life and legacy of the journalist and writer Hersh Fenster and that of the 84 Jewish artists he has portrayed in his book “Our martyr artists”, published in Yiddish in 1951.
However, most events were held as virtual ceremonies due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. Additional educational resources and ceremonies livestream are available from the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Among the activities organised by the United Nations Outreach Programme on the Holocaust, a virtual discussion of the film “The Last Survivors” directed by Arthur Cary is to be livestream on 10 February. The film gathers the compelling and, in some cases, never-before-heard testimony from the last Holocaust survivors living in Britain today. The film will be made available for viewing prior to the film discussion.
On 17 February, there will be a virtual series “Conversations with the author”, where Dr. Elisabeth Anthony will discuss her new book, “The Compromise of Return: Viennese Jews after the Holocaust” with Professor Albert Lichtblau, Universität Salzburg. The event is part of the discussion series “Refugees and Forcibly Displaced Persons”, organized by the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes against Humanity, the Graduate Center, CUNY and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University.
So International Holocaust Remembrance Day is not only a commemoration day, but also a period we are enlightened on a tragic in history.