Real Change | January 26, 2022 | By Dee Simon
International Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on Jan. 27, 1945. It is a day that the United Nations set aside so that the world would never forget the tragedy that defined the word “genocide.”
The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Six million Jewish men, women and children were murdered. Hundreds of thousands of others were targeted, including Roma, people with disabilities, Poles, gay men, Germans of African heritage, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political dissidents.
By observing this day of remembrance, we honor the survivors and victims of the Holocaust. We give ourselves the opportunity to reflect on the moral responsibilities of individuals, societies and governments. On this day, we challenge ourselves to actively fight hate in all its forms.