24th of January – the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
“Every European should learn what happened. How and why the Holocaust took place. To keep the promise of never again “, said Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić at the Council of Europe ceremony on Tuesday 24 January, marking the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies murdered about six million Jews in a genocide which has become known as the Holocaust.[7] The Nazi attempt to implement their final solution to the Jewish question took place during World War II in Europe. The first use of the phrase “never again” in the context of the Holocaust was in April 1945 when newly liberated survivors at Buchenwald concentration camp displayed it in various languages on handmade signs.[8][9] Cultural studies scholars Diana I. Popescu and Tanja Schult write that there was initially a distinction between political prisoners, who invoked “never again” as part of their fight against fascism, and Jewish survivors, whose imperative was to “never forget” their murdered relatives and destroyed communities. They write that the distinction has been blurred in the subsequent decades as the Holocaust was universalised.[9] According to the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 because “the international community vowed never again to allow” the atrocities of World War II, and the Genocide Convention was adopted the same year.
Resources:
https://www.coe.int/…/27-january-holocaust-remembrance-day
