International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2022 is on Thursday, January 27, 2022.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is celebrated every year on 27th January since 2006 after the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution for the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust on the 60th anniversary of the release of Jews from the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, who had been arrested and tortured during the 1930s and 1940s till 1945 when the Soviet Union invaded Germany and dismantled Concentration and Death Camps.
Theme of International Holocaust Remembrance Day
“Memory, Dignity and Justice”
is the Theme of International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2022. This Theme foreshadows the fact that the whole world together may work to erase the painful stains of the holocaust. The world can encourage the survivors of that era to be optimistic and may not live in the memory of that disastrous past. The theme may fulfill the purpose of forgetting such past and assure to repeat such actions in society. The victims of the holocaust who lost their lives, but the people remaining behind, into the radical phase not to engage in the revengeful bloody wars but to establish a system of social justice and equality where humanity may flourish. It also urges to remind that the victims faced the actual era of the holocaust but we as survivors have to face the consequences of the reality before us. We must be unitedly resistant towards inequality and brutality in such a way that it should be observed that the world really acknowledged the victims and the painful wound of the holocaust is not healing. The day is to promise that real recovery is only when liberty, tolerance, broadmindedness and happiness prevail in society.
In the previous year 2021, this International Day followed the theme
“Facing the Aftermath: Recovery and Reconstitution after the Holocaust”.
Celebrations of International Holocaust Remembrance Day in the UNO
Calendar of Events for Holocaust Remembrance 2022
The official page of The United Nations Organization (UNO) reveals the calendar of events for Holocaust Remembrance for the current year 2022. According to this calendar, a series of events will take place,
The United Nations Organization will hold Holocaust Memorial Ceremony in the General Assembly Hall on January 27, 2022.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a milestone in the history of both the Holocaust survivors as well as the United Nations Organization (UNO) itself as both have completed the journey of three quarters since the Great War ended. The UN dismantled the death camps to make the world peaceful and prosper.
Public Activities
The commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Da depicts the respect for the Holocaust survivors throughout the world whereas the regions like North America, Europe, and Israel mark this as an international day to commemorate the Jewish people who experienced the cruelest tortures of humanity. On this day Israel celebrates Yom e HaShoah, a day to mourn the victims of the Holocaust. Moreover, the UN also added this day to its list of International Days of observance. Apart from that, public ceremonies take place in schools, NGOs Offices, and some Public offices to commemorate the Holocaust Survivors and to recall what kind of inhumane acts human beings can commit if we allow people with extremist values and ideologies to assume power. In these public ceremonies, the speakers either recall their experiences being victims of the terrible Holocaust or they argue on the ways we can save humanity from another Holocaust.
History of International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The Holocaust is also called Shoah (Shoa) which refers to the organized ethnic cleansing of Jews in Germany and Poland. Adolf Hitler assumed power in Germany on January 30, 1933, and thus started the persecution of Jews. They were arrested under different charges like disability, homosexuality, and politico-religious disagreement with the German regime, Soviet association, and Polish ethnicity. In fact, they all were Jews and the German regime used different tactics to arrest and hold them into places more horrible than prisons called Concentration Camps. These camps named like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Chelmno, Dachau, Ebensee, and Flossenbürg. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the most horrible camp of all these. Reports reveal that more than a million Jews succumbed to death in this camp before the Soviets dismantled it on January 27, 1945, in German-occupied Poland. The UN also associated the date of the day to the dismantling of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Times of Israel published the article written by Joshua Davidovich on January 22, 2020, which reveals that approximately 6 million Jews were consumed by the Holocaust.
German Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler was defeated by the Soviets in 1945 and he committed suicide on April 30, 1945, in his underground bunker after learning about the death of Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini who was killed by Firing Squad on April 28, 1945. The Allied Forces captured Nazi Germany and to decrease the anarchy in the international system the United Nations Organization was formed on October 24, 1945. The world leaders showed intentions to reach a world order where no one would be punished or persecuted on the basis of his/her ethnicity, sexual association, political ideology, or religion.
On January 24, 2005 the UN commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps. The happening of the Holocaust was also denied before this year because people used to think that remembering such painful experiences by a community would increase the pain of the victims and their descendants. The UN General Assembly rejected such denials and suggested that we should commemorate the incident so the coming generations can learn the consequences of supporting an extremist person or group of people to reach power. The UNGA adopted a resolution on November 1, 2005, which would encourage people to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and learn what shameful acts their ascendants were experiencing during the Great Wars especially WW-II. The first International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust took place on January 27, 2006, under the resolution adopted by the UNGA.
Symbols
Logo of International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The United Nations has a proper platform to commemorate the survivors of the Holocaust with the title “Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme” which have four elements on a solid black background as the symbols. “Remembrance and Beyond” are the two symbols depicted in white color as two symbols. The globe centred on the North Pole surrounded by two olive branches is projected as the UN symbols.
A piece of barbed wire which ends in the form of two white roses is projected as two other elements. The concentration camps, the loss of Jewish people’s freedom, and the sufferings they experienced along with many other groups are represented by the barbed wires whereas the peace, freedom, and remembrance are represented by the roses. Some scholars also argue that these roses refer to a non-violent resistance movement that was active in Germany from June 1942 till February 1943.
Significance of the Logo
The white rose symbolizes the investigation, remembrance, and prevention of genocide in the United States and the United Kingdom. Rose is a beautiful flower and it has its glamour in almost every society, but it appears in pain when it is colorless (white).
International Holocaust Remembrance Day Observance Dates
| Event | Year | Date | Day | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2016 | 27 January | Wednesday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2017 | 27 January | Friday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2018 | 27 January | Saturday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2019 | 27 January | Sunday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2020 | 27 January | Monday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2021 | 27 January | Wednesday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2022 | 27 January | Thursday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2023 | 27 January | Friday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
| International Holocaust Remembrance Day | 2024 | 27 January | Saturday | United Nations (UN) Observance |
