International Holocaust Remembrance Day occurs every year on January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
This day honors the 6 million Jews and millions of others who were murdered by the Nazi regime during World War II.
Why does it matter?
In 2005, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolutionto designate this annual day in the hopes of promoting Holocaust awareness and education to prevent future acts of genocide and to reject any form of Holocaust denial.
It is important to remember that January 27, 1945 marked the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest camp complex which included a concentration camp, labor camp, gas chambers, and crematoria responsible for the deaths of more than 1.1 million people.
This was only one of the many camps that led to the genocide of one third of the Jewish population.
How does this impact us today?
The UN resolution “condemns without reserve all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur.”
We know that the world has not lived up to these ideals since 1945, but today we can change that.
This day of remembrance gives us an opportunity to stop and think.
May this important day “forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.”
Never again.
To learn more about the Holocaust and its relevance to our world today, check out these resources both inside and outside the Library:
Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.
Viann and Isabelle have always been close despite their differences. Younger, bolder sister Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann lives a quiet and content life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. When World War II strikes and Antoine is sent off to fight, Viann and Isabelle's father sends Isabelle to help her older sister cope. As the war progresses, it's not only the sisters' relationship that is tested, but also their strength and their individual senses of right and wrong. With life as they know it changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Viann and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer's monumental study of Hitler's German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the twentieth century's blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world.
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
This definitive edition, featuring a new translation, is the diary as Anne Frank wrote it, containing entries about her burgeoning sexuality and confrontations with her mother that were cut from previous editions. Frank's diary is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century.
The story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and History itself. Part I of Maus takes Spiegelman's parents to the gates of Auschwitz and him to the edge of despair.
This long-awaited sequel, subtitled And Here My Troubles Began, moves us from the barracks of Auschwitz to the bungalows of the Catskills. Maus ties together two powerful stories: Vladek's harrowing tale of survival against all odds, delineating the paradox of daily life in the death camps, and the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father.
In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.
A memoir about Ela Stein Weissberger, who at the age of eleven was sent to Terezin concentration camp with other Czech Jews. Even in the wretched conditions, many adults tried to make the children's lives more bearable. Ela studied art and learned to sing. A children's opera called Brundibar was performed, and Ela was chosen to play the pivotal role of the cat.
In this allegory, the author's reaction to the Holocaust, the animals of the forest are carried away, one type after another, by the Terrible Things, not realizing that if perhaps they would all stick together and not look the other way, such terrible things might not happen.
Gerda Weissmann Klein takes us on her journey of Holocaust survival through a series of interviews, photographs and footage shot in the actual locations of her memories.
A drama set in post-World War II Brooklyn revolves around Sophie, a Polish Catholic beauty who survived Auschwitz, her lover, Nathan, and Stingo, a would-be writer. As the three grow closer, Stingo discovers the captivating and moving truths that each harbors.
The story of a Catholic war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who risked his life and went bankrupt in order to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps. He employed Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army. At the same time he tries to stay solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant and negotiates business with a vicious Nazi commandant who enjoys shooting Jews as target practice from the balcony of his villa that overlooks the prison camp he commands.
A charming but bumbling waiter who's gifted with a colorful imagination and an irresistible sense of humor has won the heart of the woman he loves and has created a beautiful life for his young family. Then that life is threatened by World War II.
After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the Germans decreed that all 350,000 Warsaw Jews be forcibly detained in the area known as the "Warsaw Ghetto". In fear for their lives, the Polish Jews form the Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO) to fight against this oppressive force. When the German troops march into the Ghetto, they are surprised and repulsed by the JFO fighters. The resisters may not be able to achieve victory, but they intend to live with honor--and if need be, die with honor--while lighting the torch for resistance in the occupied territories. Their resolve will be tested as the Nazis promise to completely eradicate the Ghetto as a birthday present for Hitler.
The deep forests of Poland and Belorussia are the domain of the occupying Germans during World War II. The three Bielski brothers go into the forests and find the impossible task of foraging for food, weapons and survival, not just for themselves but for a large mass of fleeing Polish Jews from the German war machine. The brothers, living with the fear of discovery must contend with neighboring Soviet partisans and deciding whom to trust. They take on the responsibility of guardians and motivate hundreds of women, men, children and the elderly to join their fight against the Nazi regime.
Based upon the best-selling novel, this film is a profoundly moving story of a girl who transforms the lives of those around her during World War II, Germany. Although Liesel is illiterate when she is adopted by a German couple, her adoptive father encourages her to learn to read. Ultimately, the power of words helps Liesel and Max, a Jew hiding in the family's home, escape from the events unfolding around them.
In spring 1944, the Terezín ghetto was preparing for a visit from an International Red Cross committee, which was meant to assess its function as a model ghetto that the Führer had given to the Jews. Brundibár was chosen as the production that would be put on for the committee. The closing scenes of Brundibár were then filmed in summer 1944 for the propaganda film Theresienstadt (better known under the title The Führer Has Given the Jews a Town).
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