Today is Holocaust Memorial Day

[JellySlice]

74 years ago today the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the army of the USSR.

Over the four years of its operation 1.1 million people were brutally murdered there. 90% of the murdered were Jews, the rest were gay, Roma, disabled, politically undesirable or people who tried to save the lives of any of these groups.

The 1 million Jews murdered in Auschwitz were one sixth of the total 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were one third of the 18 million Jews worldwide at the time.

Yet Five per cent of UK adults do not believe the Holocaust took place and one in 12 believes its scale has been exaggerated, a survey has found.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Statement of Commitment

1	We recognise that the <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Holocaust</a> shook the foundations of modern <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilisation" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">civilisation</a>. Its unprecedented character and horror will always hold universal meaning.
2	We believe the Holocaust must have a permanent place in our nation's <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_memory" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">collective memory</a>. We honour the survivors still with us, and reaffirm our shared goals of mutual understanding and justice.
3	We must make sure that future generations understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences. We vow to remember the victims of <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nazi</a> <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">persecution</a> and of all <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">genocide</a>.
4	We value the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives to protect or rescue victims, as a touchstone of the human capacity for <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodness_and_value_theory" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">good</a> in the face of <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">evil</a>.
5	We recognise that humanity is still scarred by the belief that <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(classification_of_human_beings)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">race</a>, <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">religion</a>, <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">disability</a> or <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sexuality" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sexuality</a> make some people's lives worth less than others'. Genocide, <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">antisemitism</a>, <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">racism</a>, <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">xenophobia</a> and <a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">discrimination</a> still continue. We have a shared responsibility to fight these evils.
6	We pledge to strengthen our efforts to promote education and research about the Holocaust and other genocide. We will do our utmost to make sure that the lessons of such events are fully learnt.
7	We will continue to encourage Holocaust remembrance by holding an annual Holocaust Memorial Day. We condemn the evils of prejudice, discrimination and racism. We value a free, tolerant, and democratic society.

Here here :'(

Especially important as there are so few survivors left now.

There is something about seeing that brand on the arm of an elderly relative - it makes it very real.

Thanks for this thread. It’s so vitally important to talk about this.

I went to Dachau in my 20s, it was very helpful for me to see what it was like there. I still can’t believe there are holocaust deniers when there’s still blood stains on the walls of the camps. I’d also recommend the book The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom about a lady who’s family hid Jewish people and ended up in a concentration camp for it. Heartbreaking story but beautifully written.

I've got the Holocaust Memorial Candle on my FB page. I share it every year.... 😔 😔 😔 😔

It was heartbreaking to see that 1 in 20 Britons don’t think it happened (according to BBC news today).
I don’t know who they polled or how many to get that answer but it’s horrifying.
Then again given the state of the rise in right wing thinking it isn’t surprising. We are destined to repeat it in some way.

I live in a part of Europe where there are daily reminders of this. Thank you for posting.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47015184
One in 20 people in the UK deny that the Holocaust took place, and one in 12 believe that its extent was exaggerated.

Thanks for posting this. We must tell and tell and tell. May their memories be a blessing 🕯

I watched Night Will Fall last night. The images, especially at the beginning where the soldiers are dealing with the emaciated dead bodies of the victims in the concentration camps were truly shocking and horrifying. I started a thread on it but only received one reply .

That film should be compulsory viewing for anyone who denies that it happened.

My grandad was one of the first British soldiers to go into Belsen. I never heard him talk about it, but a couple of years ago his niece told me some of the things he had told her saw - horrible, shocking things, including the emaciated dead bodies mentioned by PP.

I too post the candle on my Facebook page each year on this day. It scares and horrifies me that some people either don't believe it happened or don't even know if happened. I was taught about the Holocaust at school and while we were studying it the documentary Shoah was shown one weekend on Channel 4. Our teacher suggested we watch it and it remains one of the hardest but more important things I have watched. Interestingly, there is no footage from ths camps in it, just interviews with survivors, witnesses and perpetrators, and film of the camps as they are now.

Has anyone seen Playing for Time, a film starring Vanessa Redgrave, about female prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp being spared from death in return for performing music for their captors?

I'm pretty sure I watched this in 1985 when it was shown to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of WW2.

My dc's learnt about the holocaust in year 5 when they covered WW2.

CBBC has had two programmes on this week. One documentary of a girl travelling over Europe with her grandfather who survived the holocaust and a narrated drama about Anne Frank. I think they were well made, I made sure we watched them together.

I did this at both gcse and a level and I still dream about it regularly. The bbc has put the boy in the striped pyjamas on tonight which I thought was a nice touch.

Thank you for this thread.

I went to Auschwitz a few years ago at this time of year. There was gentle snowfall and it was so eerie. The tour guides told stories so well. I think it's something everybody should do in their lifetime, visit one of the camps. I can't really describe it, the experience itself was really powerful and whilst I knew all about the Holocaust before I went I feel like I understand it more on a human level after having been.

@orcinus
In some countries it is a normal part of the national curriculum to visit the camps. My own children have been to two.

@MemorialBeach - then your granddad is one of the reasons that my mum, my children, and I are all alive today.

My beautiful grandmother, who passed away on New Year's Day, was liberated from Belsen, the SOLE survivor of her family. She was emaciated, only a day or two from certain death due to health, and those soldiers who liberated the camp saved her. Many others died after liberation, as they were too sick, but somehow my grandma recovered.

She never learnt the names of the soldiers who helped her, or the British Army medics who saved her life, so as a family we have always honoured and loved every soldier involved in the liberation.

Today my family mourns the family my grandmother lost; her parents, her eight siblings, her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We may never have known them, but my grandmother loved them, and therefore we love them.

We also mourn the loss of every life in the Holocaust, not just the Jewish victims, but ALL of them.

We also take time to give thanks to, and remember, the soldiers who liberated the camps, especially those who liberated Belsen, because millions of us are alive today who wouldn't have been otherwise.

And this year, the first Holocaust Memorial Day without my grandmother, we give thanks to the long life she went on to lead. She experienced horrors we will never truly comprehend, but she refused to let it stop her living her life, so she lived every single day to its fullest. Now she has gone, and it is our duty to carry her story and memory in, and we will do so.

Never again.

@CheeseTheDay your post has made me cry. I echo your never forget.

Every time I read about someone like your grandmother, people who lost most or in many cases all of their family, I end up crying. For the survivors, for the lives lost, for the futures which never happened.

Have we learned anything?

In 1939 the UK took in 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children aged between 5 and 16 from Central Europe. The UK saved 10,000 young lives.

In 2016 the UK agreed to take in unaccompanied refugee children from the war-torn areas in Arabia and North Africa. How many did the government agree to save? 350. After much work by campaigners, the cap was increased to 480. Lord Alfred Dubs was campaigning to bring 3000 vulnerable children to safety, just as he had been brought to safety 75 years earlier.

In 1939 the UK saved 10,000 vulnerable refugee children.

In 2018 the UK saved 220 vulnerable refugee children.

I was once chatting to a charming old lady at a supermarket checkout. She had a faint trace of a European accent. As she reached out to move her shopping on the conveyor belt her sleeve slid up a bit and I saw a very old tattooed number on her arm. I have never forgotten her, and have often wondered what horrors she witnessed.

There is a most touching and emotional short film on BBC CBBC Newsround called The Holocaust: Hear Our Stories.

It's grandparents telling their grandchildren about how they survived the Holocaust. You will need tissues to hand if you watch it, but it is ultimately uplifting.

Have we learned anything?

The actions by some countries and lack of actions by others in the Rwandan genocide and the ongoing issues with North Korea and their camps implies not.

It feels like we (as a world) give very little fucks about human life.

Does anyone know one of the %? Find it very hard to believe that people don't know about this.