International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust

Today we honour the memory of the victims of the Holocaust with solemn reflection and unwavering resolve. We mourn the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators – as well as the Roma and Sinti, the people with disabilities, and countless others who perished. Each victim had a name. Each victim had hopes and dreams. And each of those victims had their rights systematically denied and destroyed. When we remember these indisputable truths, we remember their humanity. We grieve for all that was lost and all that might have been. The Holocaust was not inevitable. Its architects made their intentions clear. Their hatred and violence unfolded in plain sight. The facts are undeniable. Yet today we see the forces of distortion and denial on the march. Antisemitism, bigotry, racism and discrimination are being fuelled by dehumanizing rhetoric and enabled by indifference. We must take a stand – to honour past victims, and prevent further atrocities. We must renounce hatred an...

The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers - it began with words, laws, and neighbors that chose silence over action. On #HolocaustRemembranceDay , we honor the six million Jews and millions of other victims brutally and systematically murdered. “Never Again” is not a slogan. It is a responsibility to speak out and defend the dignity of every member of our human family, everywhere.

In his 10th Holocaust Remembrance Day address, Secretary-General António Guterres told survivors and their families gathered in the General Assembly Hall that honouring the dead “and the fight against the ancient poison of antisemitism – is not abstract, but personal”. Every year on the day the concentration camps were liberated in 1945, the world unites to honour the memory of the six million Jews – mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents – who perished at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Included in the commemoration are the Roma and Sinti communities, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ individuals, and all others who suffered from the systemic violence, torture, and genocide of the Nazi regime. Mr. Guterres emphasised that the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten. “Remembrance is more than honouring the past. It is a duty and a promise – to defend dignity, to protect the vulnerable, and to keep faith with those whose names and stories we refuse to...

Each year on 27 January, UNESCO joins the international community in honouring the memory of the six million women, men, and children who were murdered because they were born Jewish—as well as the memory of all victims of Nazi barbarity. This Day is a moment for universal reflection, because in the deliberate will to erase entire peoples, the dignity of all of humanity was mutilated.This year's theme, ‘Holocaust Remembrance for Human Dignity and Human Rights’, refers to remembrance as a universal moral imperative. For the Holocaust was made possible above all by the collapse of human rights—when the law no longer protected, but instead singled out, excluded, and discriminated. Imagined at the very heart of the Second World War, UNESCO is the only United Nations agency responsible for promoting Holocaust education worldwide and combatting anti-Semitism and hate speech.Concretely, our Organization works to equip teachers with the pedagogical tools needed to teach about violent pasts....

International Holocaust Remembrance Day invites us not only to look at our past, but to reflect on our present, and to safeguard our future. To some, 1945 may seem like distant history. It is difficult to fathom that within living memory, a group of deluded killers inflicted unspeakable atrocities on millions of Jews and members of other minorities. The Nazi regime persecuted them, stripped them of dignity, and ultimately murdered them with the horrific efficiency of an assembly line. Systematically, openly, and without consequences. The history of the Holocaust offers striking lessons. This appalling cruelty was not born in medieval darkness, but in the broad daylight of a supposedly modern society. The genocide did not begin with concentration camps and gas chambers; it started with apathy and silence in the face of injustice, and with the corrosive dehumanization of the other. Today, and always, we need to remember this. In a disturbing trend, threats and assaults against Jews have...

Excellencies, dear friends, I am deeply honoured to join you and humbled by the presence of Holocaust survivors and their families. We gather in solemn remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. They were mothers and fathers. Sons and daughters. Grandparents and grandchildren. Six million Jews murdered just because they were Jewish. We also grieve the Roma and Sinti, the people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people, and so many more who were enslaved, persecuted, tortured, and killed. And we also remember the stories and struggles of those who confronted the worst of humanity to show us the best. Diplomats who defied orders and issued life saving visas. Journalists who fought to expose the truth. And farmers and villagers who hid families at great peril. Remembrance is more than honouring the past. It is a duty and a promise: to defend dignity, to protect the vulnerable, and to keep faith with those whose names and stories we refuse to forget. The Holocaust, after all, is not only his...