TASS PROFILE. January 27 is the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust.
Date of establishment
This day was established by resolution 60/7 of the United Nations General Assembly (GA) of 1 November 2005, initiated by Australia, Israel, Canada, Russia and the United States and co-sponsored by more than 90 countries. January 27 was chosen because on this day in 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz (in Poland, 60 km west of Krakow), the largest Nazi concentration camp. About 1.1 to 1.5 million people died there, 90% of whom were Jews. The General Assembly resolution states that “The Holocaust, which resulted in the extermination of one-third of the Jewish people and countless other minorities, will always serve as a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.”
Terminology
In a broad sense, the term “Holocaust” (from the ancient Greek holocaustosis – “burnt offering”, “destruction by fire”) means the Nazi persecution and mass extermination of representatives of various ethnic and social groups – Jews, Roma, Slavs, disabled people, mentally ill people, homosexuals, etc. – during World War II. However, today in scientific literature and journalism this term is more often used to refer to the genocide of Jews on the territory of Nazi Germany and occupied countries. It became popular in the 1950s thanks to the books of 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), a former prisoner of Auschwitz. In Israel the name “Catastrophe of European Jewry” is also used.
Holocaust
The racial theory of Nazism was based on the idea of \u200b\u200bthe superiority of the Aryan race over other, considered “inferior” races, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe “world Jew” as the main enemy of the German nation, the concept of “racial hygiene”, which prescribed the sterilization or extermination of various categories of citizens (epileptics, people suffering from various genetic diseases, weak people).
Since Hitler came to power in 1933, restrictions and repression mainly concerned Jews, who were systematically forced out of every sphere of life of the Third Reich. In 1936, the Roma were suppressed, and the extermination of representatives of religious and sexual minorities began. This was followed by the expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany and the mass murders of Jews on the night of November 9–10, 1938, which went down in history as Kristallnacht (due to the glass shards scattered across the streets of German cities). Since 1939, the concentration of Jews in ghettos began on the territory of occupied countries, and after the attack on the Soviet Union, the physical extermination of Jews on the territory of the Baltic republics, Belarus, Ukraine and in the southern regions of Russia began (the number of Jews who found themselves on the territory occupied by the Germans was 2.75-2.9 million people, most of them died). The “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” – the extermination of some 10 million Jews living in Europe – was adopted in January 1942 at a conference of the Nazi leadership on the outskirts of Berlin on Lake Wannsee. To implement this decision, death camps were established (mainly in Poland) where prisoners did not live more than 2 hours – that was the time it took them to travel from the unloading station to the gas chamber. As the Reich's power spread, the Nazis persecuted and killed millions of non-Jews – prisoners of war, cultural and church figures, political dissidents (communists, socialists and trade unionists) of the occupied countries. The last mass operation to exterminate the “surplus” population was carried out in the summer of 1944 at Auschwitz.
victim
The exact number of victims of the Holocaust is unknown. According to estimates based largely on comparisons of pre- and post-war censuses, 6 million Jews were killed – 60% of European Jews, or about a third of the world's Jewish population, and about a quarter of the Roma living in Europe – 220 thousand people. Among those killed in death camps were 3 million Soviet prisoners of war, about 200 thousand people with mental disorders, mental retardation, diseases, disabilities, thousands of mentally ill children, about 9 thousand homosexuals. According to some studies, more than 20 million people were intentionally exterminated by Nazi Germany and the occupied territories; according to other estimates, only the number of victims of the genocide of the Slavs (Poles, Russians, Slovenes, etc.) ranged from 19.7 million to 23.9 million, of which Soviet citizens – from 15.5 million to 19.5 million (prisoners of war and civilians, including Jews, sent to camps or killed in massacres on the country's territory).
Save memory
The United Nations General Assembly resolution establishing this Day in 2005 countered efforts to deny the Holocaust as a historical event and condemned any expression of religious intolerance. The document calls on countries to develop educational programs to preserve the memory of this page of history for future generations to prevent the genocide from recurring. According to the resolution, the program “Holocaust and the United Nations” was established, within the framework of which international campaigns and conferences are being carried out and educational materials are being prepared for teachers and students.
In January 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on all countries to unconditionally reject any denial of the Holocaust, and the January 2022 resolution emphasized that “ignoring the historical truth about those terrible events increases the risk of their recurrence.”
Since 2005, a series of international events focused on preserving the memory of the Holocaust and other tragic events of World War II have been organized – the World Holocaust Forum. Its organizer is a special fund overseen by the European Jewish Congress, an international NGO representing the interests of European Jewry. To date, 5 such forums have been organized (in 2005, 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2020).
Every year on January 27, as well as before this day, various ceremonies are held at the United Nations headquarters in New York and at the United Nations offices (Vienna, Geneva and Nairobi), films about events related to the Holocaust are shown, thematic exhibitions are opened and other commemorative events are organized. In 2026, they united under the theme “Remembering the Holocaust in the name of dignity and human rights”.
