January 27 – International Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Today, many countries throughout the world held events dedicated to the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust. This date was established by the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) of November 1, 2005, and is dedicated to the events of the world’s largest genocide in the history of mankind. It is about the purposeful destruction of the Jewish people by fascist Germany during the Second World War.

The concept of the Holocaust is also interpreted more broadly, namely as a policy of total extermination by the Nazis of representatives of various ethnic and social groups during the Third Reich. This concept is translated from the Greek as “burnt offering”.

History of the Holocaust is the story of the terrible catastrophe of European Jewry that began in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. By promoting pseudoscientific racial theories and the need to cleanse the German nation of all unwanted people, he made anti-Semitism a part of the national ideology. The Nazis set themselves the goal of exterminating the Jews as species. Representatives of this nation were isolated in the ghetto, shot, tortured in concentration camps and brutally killed in death camps… There was no mercy even for children.

January 27 is a symbolic date. It was on this day in 1945 that the soldiers of the Soviet army liberated the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz. According to various estimates, there were from 1.5 million to 4 million people, who died there. The exact number of victims is still unknown. The data on the deaths of 2.8 million people, of which 90% were Jews, was considered as part of the Nuremberg Trials (International Military Tribunal).

It is believed that during the Second World War, the Nazis killed 6 million Jews in total. However, today many researchers agree that in reality, the number of victims of Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies is much higher.

In accordance with modern data, 14,033 centres (concentration camps, their branches, prisons, ghettos, etc.) were created under Hitlerism in Germany itself and in the European countries occupied by it, where people were kept in difficult conditions, used for backbreaking work, conducting experiments and killing. According to the various estimates, out of 18 million citizens of European countries who passed through Nazi camps for various purposes, more than 11 million people died.

“The Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one-third of the Jewish people along with countless members of other minorities, will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice” Universal Declaration of Human Rights states.

Today, when in some countries we observe active manifestations of racism, anti-Semitism and obvious attempts to revive the fascist ideology, the Ombudsman calls not only to remember the events of those years, but also to unite the efforts of civilized states to prevent acts of genocide.