International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Why is it important?

On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.

The day remembers the killing of six million Jews, two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, and millions of others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. It was designated by United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005. The resolution came after a special session was held earlier that year on 24 January to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust.

General Assembly Resolution 60/7

The Meaning

Resolution 60/7 establishing 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day rejects any denial of the Holocaust as an event and condemns all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief.

Education

It also calls for actively preserving the Holocaust sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration camps, forced labor camps and prisons, as well as for establishing a U.N. program of outreach and mobilization of society for Holocaust remembrance and education.

The supporters

Resolution 60/7 and the International Holocaust Day was an initiative of the State of Israel. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel, Silvan Shalom, was the head of the delegation of Israel to the United Nations.

The content

The essence of the text lies in its twofold approach: one that deals with the memory and remembrance of those who were massacred during the Holocaust and the other with educating future generations of its horrors.

source: ushmm.com, wikipedia.org

The International Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust is thus a day on which we must reassert our commitment to human rights. [...] We must also go beyond remembrance, and make sure that new generations know this history. We must apply the lessons of the Holocaust to today's world. And we must do our utmost so that all peoples may enjoy the protection and rights for which the United Nations stands.

— Message by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon for the second observance of the Holocaust Victims Memorial Day on 19 January 2008

The First Commemoration

The first commemoration ceremony was held on January 27, 2006, at the UN Headquarters in New York City. Nearly 2,200 people attended in person. Since the ceremony was broadcast live on television, many more people were able to view it throughout the world.



The UN Headquarters holds official commemorations each year. UN offices across the world and other state offices also conduct their own ceremonies.

What is the Holocaust?

The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II.

Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Be┼é┼╝ec, Che┼émno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland.

The Path to Nazi Genocide

This 38-minute film from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum examines the Nazis' rise and consolidation of power in Germany. Using rare footage, the film explores their ideology, propaganda, and persecution of Jews and other victims.

You can also find some discussion resources here

National commemoration Ceremonies

In 2015, 39 countries participated in International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration ceremonies. Remembrance activities varied by country. Some hosted lectures and presentations on different topics, while others showed films and documentaries on the Holocaust. Other countries lit candles or read the names of victims of the Nazi regime.

In addition to observing International Holocaust Remembrance Day, many of the participating countries have established their own remembrance days that are often connected to events from the Holocaust. For example, Argentina legislated April 19, the day of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, as the national Day for Cultural Diversity. Hungary designated April 16 as National Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the establishment of the ghetto in Munkács. In 1979, the United States Congress established Days of Remembrance that usually take place between April and early May to commemorate victims of the Nazi regime. The US Days of Remembrance correspond to Yom Ha-Shoah, Israel's annual Holocaust Remembrance Day.

What is "Holocaust Denial"?

"Holocaust denial" describes attempts to negate the established facts of the Nazi genocide of European Jewry. Common denial assertions are that the murder of six million Jews during World War II never occurred; that the Nazis had no official policy or intention to exterminate the Jews; and that the poison gas chambers in the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center never existed.

A newer trend is the distortion of the facts of the Holocaust. Common distortions include assertions that the figure of six million Jewish deaths is an exaggeration; that deaths in the concentration camps were the results of disease or starvation but not policy; and that the diary of Anne Frank is a forgery.

This view perpetuates long-standing antisemitic stereotypes by accusing Jews of conspiracy and world domination, hateful charges that were instrumental in laying the groundwork for the Holocaust.

The United States Constitution ensures freedom of speech. Therefore, in the United States denying the Holocaust or engaging in anti-Semitic hate speech is not illegal, except when there is an imminent threat of violence. Many other countries, particularly in Europe where the Holocaust occurred, have laws criminalizing Holocaust denial and hate speech.

Resources

A message from UNESCO highlights the importance of education and remembrance:

The Holocaust profoundly affected countries in which Nazi crimes were perpetrated, with universal implications and consequences in many other parts of the world. Member States share a collective responsibility for addressing the residual trauma, maintaining effective remembrance policies, caring for historic sites, and promoting education, documentation and research, more than seven decades after the genocide. This responsibility entails educating about the causes, consequences and dynamics of such crimes so as to strengthen the resilience of young people against ideologies of hatred. As genocide and atrocity crimes keep occurring across several regions, and as we are witnessing a global rise of antisemitism and hate speech, this has never been so relevant.

UNESCO

Every year around 27 January, UNESCO pays tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and reaffirms its unwavering commitment to counter antisemitism, racism, and other forms of intolerance that may lead to group-targeted violence.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Student Website

Organized by theme, this learning site presents an overview of the Holocaust through historical photographs, maps, images of artifacts, and testimony clips. It offers content that reflects the history as it is presented in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Permanent Exhibition.

Holocaust-related records from the National Archives

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an international epicenter of Holocaust-related research. NARA holds millions of records created or received by the U.S. Government during and after World War II that document Nazi war crimes, wartime refugee issues, and activities and investigations of U.S. Government agencies involved in the identification and recovery of looted assets (including gold, art, and cultural property)-as well as captured German records used as evidence at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, U.S. military tribunals at Nuremberg, and U.S. Army courts.