Holocaust Remembrance Day 2023: History, significance and all you need to know

Every year, International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on January 27 to reflect on the atrocities inflicted by Adolf Hitler, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated six million Jews. The day commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in January 1945 from Nazi control.

Holocaust is considered to be one of the most heinous acts of violence and discrimination when Nazis attempted to implement their "final solution" to the "Jewish problem." The United Nations General Assembly declared in November 2005 that January 27 to be observed worldwide as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Holocaust Memorial Day: History

During 1933–1945, Hitler's German Nazi administration killed many ethnic groups, notably European Jews, whom he regarded as an inferior race. It is said that Jewish men, women, and children at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland faced the most heinous atrocities. The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 60/7 not only to commemorate the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust," but to reject any form of Holocaust denial.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights supports the resolution to condemn all forms of "religious intolerance, incitement, harassment, or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief" across the world.

Many of the participating countries have established their own Holocaust Remembrance Days. Argentina declared April 19, the day of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, as the national day for cultural diversity. Hungary announced April 16 as National Holocaust Remembrance Day. Whereas the US Days of Remembrance correspond to Yom Ha-Shoah, Israel's annual Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Holocaust Remembrance Day: Significance

The commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day is important as it makes the world remember the killing of six million Jews, two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, and millions of others by the Nazi forces and their collaborators. The day is commemorated to encourage the development of educational programmes about Holocaust history to help prevent future acts of genocide. The day also encourages member nations of the UN to preserve sites that were used by the Nazis during the "Final Solution," which include killing centers, concentration camps, and prisons.

Atrocities committed by Hitler

• Adolf Hitler, the anti-Semitic Nazi leader, is said to have had the responsibility of killing nearly six million Jews during World War II.
• He believed Jews were a foreign threat to German racial purity and planned a "final solution" that became known as the Holocaust. Over a million children became victims during the Holocaust.
• To kill the Jewish population of the country, Hitler established concentration camps, including one at Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland. Over two million people were killed in Auschwitz alone, and the majority of them were Jews.
• The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic and racist laws that were drafted by Hitler on September 15, 1935. The laws deprived Jews of their rights and prohibited Jews from marrying German citizens.
• Not only Jews in the country were targeted by the Nazis, but people belonging to other communities were also killed on account of their perceived racial and biological inferiority. Other groups targeted by Hitler included the Roma (Gypsies), individuals with impairments, and those of Slavic descent, particularly Poles and Russians.
• After the Nazis learned that Germany and the other Axis countries would lose the war in early 1943, the Germans and their Axis partners destroyed much of the existing documentation and a large number of tangible proofs of the genocide.

Image: AP