International Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27th is celebrated around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The decision to adopt this date to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust was taken by the United Nations General Assembly in November 2005, almost two months before the 61st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps by Russian troops.

The Death March

Although the camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau were liberated on January 27th, 1945, for most prisoners freedom was still a long way away. Thousands of the inmates were not free yet, as hours before the camps were liberated, the majority were forcibly marched out of the camps at gunpoint. Their march through western Poland and into Germany became known as the Death March.

It was winter and bitterly cold. Many prisoners died on the way and many more suffered from frostbite. Others who fell and were too weak to proceed due to malnutrition and exhaustion were shot and their bodies were left lying in the snow. Some prisoners did manage to escape during the night, as they had briefly stopped and slept in a barn on the way.

Ads by Google

The Death March continued across the border into Germany and for some it terminated at Ravensbrück – another Nazi concentration camp. Ravensbrück was liberated by the Red Army on April 30th, 1945, more than three months after the liberation of Auschwitz.

We Must Remember the Holocaust

As many of the survivors of the Holocaust have now died and many more will pass away in the years to come, it is the duty of the younger generations to keep their memory alive. As Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said during the observance of the Holocaust Victims Memorial Day on January 19th, 2008:

"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."

Commemorating the Holocaust

The Holocaust has been commemorated around the world in many ways. There are statues, museums and monuments dedicated to its memory in many countries of the world. Auschwitz is now a museum and thousands of people visit the infamous site every year where they come face to face with the inhumanity of the conditions suffered by the inmates of the camp. Ravensbrück is also a memorial site dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust.

Established in 1953 Yad Vashem is the Jewish people's living memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem. It safeguards the memory of the past and preserves it for future generations. It is a dynamic center for inter-generational and international encounters.

In New York The Garden of Stones is a memorial to the survivors and victims of the Holocaust at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Designed by the British artist Any Goldsworthy it consists of 18 boulders within which miniature oak trees have been planted. It brings together the permanent and the transitory, the hard and the soft, the new and the old.

The best memorial is the living memory in the hearts and minds of people who care. The more the new generations take the trouble to remember the horrors of the holocaust, the less the possibility of another holocaust being perpetrated by one nation upon another.

References:

Muller, Filip. Eye Witness Auscwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. Chicago: 1979.

Steinbacher, Sybille. Auschwitz: A History. HarperCollins Publishers Inc. New York: 2005.

Kuperberg, Icek. Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor. Universal Publisher. Parkland, FL: 2000.