27 January: International Holocaust Remembrance Day

To mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the United Nations General Assembly declared 27 January "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" in 2005.

In it, the General Assembly declares „that the Holocaust, in which one third of the Jewish people and countless members of other minorities were murdered, will serve for all time as a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, intolerance, racism and prejudice“. The resolution „urges Member States to develop educational programmes that will embed the lessons of the Holocaust in the minds of future generations in order to help prevent acts of genocide from occurring again in the future“ and „condemns unreservedly all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities on the basis of their ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur“.

Austrian remembrance in transition

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January commemorates the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp is synonymous with the industrialised mass extermination of European Jews and thus occupies a prominent position in the memory of the Holocaust. Holocaust Remembrance Day (Hebrew: Shoah) stands for the worldwide remembrance of the victims of National Socialist anti-Semitism and racism and also bears this meaning in its title.

In January 1996, Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, declared 27 January as „Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism“. In 1997, the Austrian National Council decided not to use 27 January as Holocaust Remembrance Day, but rather 5 May, the day of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, as an annual national „Day of Remembrance against Violence and Racism in Memory of the Victims of National Socialism“. Austria decided to remove the term Holocaust from the name of the day of remembrance on 5 May. Instead, the commemoration of the victims of National Socialism will focus on the fight against violence, racism and anti-Semitism. In this way, commemoration and remembrance should contribute to strengthening basic democratic rights.

Source: OEAD erinnern.at