This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War: a calamity that resulted in the deaths of some 70 to 85 million people, 50 to 55 million of them civilians.
Of these, 6 million were European Jews who were rounded up in Germany and German-occupied territories and transported to concentration and forced labor camps. There they were worked to death; or killed by starvation; or died in laboratories and medical facilities where they were subjected to various medical experiments; or they were outright executed by poison gas, simply for being Jews.
In addition to Jews, a number of other minorities were also targeted for extermination, including political opponents and activists, Communists, intellectuals, Romani people, gays and lesbians and the intellectually disabled people. But no other group was persecuted so vehemently, and in such numbers, solely because of their ethnicity.
Indeed, in early 1942, Nazi leadership formalized the implementation of what they called the “Final Solution”: the systematic annihilation of a specific segment of the population as government policy.
Today, the genocide that was committed by the Nazi regime against European Jews is known as the Holocaust.
On January 27, 1944, Soviet armed forces liberated the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp complex in southern Poland. Sadly, despite mountains of evidence from Auschwitz and a vast network of other such facilities; despite extensive survivor testimonies, and eyewitness accounts from those who liberated the concentration and death camps; Holocaust denial and distortion persist.
That is why two decades ago, the United Nations chose that date to annually honor the millions of victims of genocide: since 2005, on January 27, many nations observe International Holocaust Memorial Day. It is a day for introspection and remembrance, as well as an opportunity to educate people about the Holocaust so that it may never be repeated.
It’s been 80 years, four generations since the end of the Second World War. Few are left who survived the Holocaust, or those who broke open the death-camp doors and freed the condemned. It is up to us now to never again allow hatred and intolerance to drown out our humanity and respect for the lives of others.
