On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – where more than one million people were sent to gas chambers and to their agonizing deaths during the Holocaust – was liberated. In 2005, that day was designated as the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Each year, Canadians and individuals all over the world take this opportunity to remember the victims of the atrocities of the Holocaust and reflect on the dangers of anti-Semitism.
In 2015, Canada and the international community marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The Government of Canada commemorated this day at a special ceremony that brought together government officials, religious leaders and Holocaust survivors. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Holocaust was “the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jewish men, women and children by the Nazi regime and its collaborations”. In addition, 11 million members of other groups were murdered during the “era of the Holocaust”, including 275,000 disabled people.
Resolution 60/7 establishes January 27 as International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and it also rejects any form of Holocaust denial. Drawing from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the resolution condemns all forms of “religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against person or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief through the world. The Resolution also focuses on the disabled community as one of the many victim groups of the Nazi regime, and highlights the importance of education in promoting tolerance and ending discrimination against all minorities, particularly in light of the adoption by the General Assembly on 13 December 2006 of the landmark Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The Mind Forward EDI Committee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day
https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/canada-holocaust/international-remembrance-day.html