On 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau German Nazi Concentration Camp, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated. Established by the UN General Assembly in 2005, the day aims to pay tribute to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism.
Why do we return to these events from over 80 years ago? Why does Auschwitz-Birkenau continue to draw the world’s attention? Is the remembrance of the millions of victims a sufficient testament to ensure that such crimes never happen again? These are the questions that the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS) invites to reflect upon as part of its annual campaign aimed at increasing awareness of the Holocaust and its catastrophic consequences.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the biggest German Nazi Concentration Camp and extermination center. Between 1940 and 1945 about one million Jews and 100,000 members of other ethnicities, including Poles, Roma as well as Soviet captives, were killed. The methodical extermination at Auschwitz lasted until the very end of the camp's operation. On January 18, only a few days before the Red Army crossed the Camp’s gates, the evacuation began: nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced to go on the death march and about 15,000 died.
Auschwitz is a symbol of the Holocaust, but this unprecedented crime against humanity took place wherever the influence of the Third Reich reached. As a result of the Shoah, nearly 6 million Jews lost their lives, of which about half are victims of different concentration and extermination camps.
In the spirit of responsibility for the present day and concern for the future, the ENRS each year takes part in the commemoration of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This year, we will launch an education and information campaign across our social media channels and digital platforms, highlighting the extent and impact of the Holocaust. An educational toolkit, thought-provoking scholarly articles, an interactive map, and audiovisual materials are just some of the initiatives we have planned.
A poignant and opening highlight of the campaign will be a short film showcasing the work of Mieczysław Kościelniak—a painter, graphic artist, and prisoner of the German death camp Auschwitz. Kościelniak created approximately 300 drawings in the camp, documenting the daily lives of its prisoners. While imprisoned, he was an active member of the clandestine Union of Armed Struggle, tasked with documenting German-Nazi crimes through his artwork. Smuggled out of the camp hidden in bundles of dirty laundry, these drawings now serve not only as a record of tragedy but also as an extraordinary testament to resistance and the resilience of the human spirit.
How can you join the International Holocaust Remembrance Day campaign?
▪️ With a moment of silence and reflection, try to answer the question: "Why did Auschwitz not fall from the sky?”▪️ Watch a short film, showcasing the work of Mieczysław Kościelniak .
▪️ Read an interview “The Holocaust is not just a historical event. It is also our shared responsibility” , in which Prof. Jan Rydel and Prof. Piotr Trojański address questions such as why there are still groups that deny the Holocaust as a historical event or diminish its significance, and how Holocaust memory shapes our European identity.
▪️ Watch a short animated film, “Memento” , prepared by the ENRS and the House of the Wannsee Conference for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day; the film is directed by the Hungarian auteur Zoltán Szilágyi Varga.
▪️ Watch a short film, “Righteous Diplomacy” (2021) dedicated to diplomats who played an important role in saving thousands of Jews during the Second World War. The film is part of educational package “The Different Ways Jews Were Helped during the Holocaust” on Hi-story Lessons , an online educational platform.
▪️ Study our special educational package on the subject. The lesson plans and ideas for commemorating Holocaust-related remembrance days developed by educators refer, among other, to travelling exhibition “Between Life and Death […]” focusing on various forms of aiding Jews during the Holocaust and stories of their survival. The materials are available in Polish and English at Hi-story Lessons .
▪️ Watch our webinar recordings on teaching about the Holocaust: “Resources for history teachers: an educational kit about the Holocaust” (M. Grądzka-Rejak), “Resources for history teachers: International Holocaust Remembrance Day” (U. Bijoś, J. Mayr), and “Against the Holocaust: Jewish Resistance. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and examples from Vilnius region” (J. Majewska, D. Ozacky-Stern).
▪️ Find out more about the travelling exhibition “Between Life and Death. Stories of Rescue during the Holocaust” which tells the hidden stories of the selfless courage and incredible efforts made to save the lives of Jews, during the Second World War.
▪️ Listen to an interview with one of the heroes of the exhibition “Between Life and Death […]” – Elżbieta Ficowska, and read about her love to both of her mothers in the article “In the name of her both mothers”.
▪️ Read the Carol Elias’s piece on the “Holocaust and Diaspora Survival: The Next Generations. Past, Present, Future” and Roman Żuchowicz’s article introducing the subject of “The Wannsee Conference”, a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders to discuss the implementation of the “final solution to the Jewish question”.
▪️ Visit an interactive map of the Wannsee Conference .
▪️ See how the participants of the “Sound in the Silence” transformed their knowledge and experiences from visiting memory sites—Wannsee and Stara Gradiška—into a moving performance evoking the voices of both perpetrators and victims of the Holocaust, as well as young people’s reflections on experiencing history through art.
▪️ Explore Holocaust issues from an academic perspective with video recordings and other materials from the conference „Genealogies of Memory 2020. The Holocaust between Global and Local Perspectives” (2020), and
▪️ An issue of “Remembrance And Solidarity. Studies in the 20th Century” on the subject of the Holocaust/Shoah (2016).
▪️ Once more listen to the Marian Turski’s, Auschwitz survivor’s, speech delivered at the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation and share your feelings.
▪️ Follow us, commemorate with others and do not be indifferent.
Find out more about the ENRS’s commemoration of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day here.