In 2005 the UN General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this annual day of commemoration, every member state of the UN has an obligation to honor the victims of the Nazi era and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.
The theme of 2018’s commemoration is “Holocaust Remembrance and Education: Our Shared Responsibility.” It underscores “the universal dimension of the Holocaust and encourages education on this tragedy so that future generations will firmly reject all forms of racism, violence and anti-Semitism. The Holocaust was a defining point in history and its lessons have much to teach about the danger of extremism and the prevention of genocide today.”
Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Germans. Located 37 miles west of Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border, the complex included concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camps.
On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying.
Vasily Gromadsky, an officer in the Red Army liberating Auschwitz, recalled:
I realized that they were prisoners and not workers so I called out, ‘You are free! Come out!’ They [the prisoners] began rushing towards us, in a big crowd. They were weeping, embracing us and kissing us. I felt a grievance on behalf of mankind that these fascists had made such a mockery of us. It roused me and all the soldiers to go and quickly destroy them and send them to hell.
At least 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, 1.1 million were murdered.
Italian writer Primo Levi, who survived eleven months in Auschwitz (From February 1944 until liberation day), opened his 1946 memoir Se questo è un uomo (If This is a Man | Survival in Auschwitz) with the poetic invocation here.
