Every January on Holocaust Memorial Day, the world remembers the six million Jews and millions of other minorities who were killed during the genocide of World War II.
As part of Hitler’s Final Solution, what was known as Shoah in Hebrew, the mass murder of Jews, was carried out by the Nazis between 1941 and 1945 across Europe.
All over the world, commemorative events will take place to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, but also subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur are remembered to try and end racial violence once and for all.
Mayor Sadiq Khan addressed the London Assembly in a January 22 ceremony held in City Hall for Holocaust Memorial Day.
‘On National Holocaust Memorial Day, it is vital that we all take time to hear the accounts of Jewish survivors and refugees who went through unimaginable horrors during the Holocaust,’ Khan said.
Sadiq Khan addressed the London Assembly in a ceremony held for Holocaust Memorial Day
When is Holocaust Memorial Day?
Holocaust Memorial Day is held on January 27 every year to remember the day the largest concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated from the Nazis.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is also marked on January 27.
What is the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2018?
After beginning in the UK in 2001, Holocaust Memorial Day has been marked every year on January 27.
The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2018 is ‘The Power of Words’.
Past themes have included ‘Remembering Genocides: Lesson For The Future’ and ‘One Person Can Make A Difference’.
Holocaust Day is held on January 27 every year to remember the day Auschwitz was liberated
What was the Holocaust?
As directed by Hitler’s Nazi party, the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah in Hebrew, is a term to describe the genocide of Jews and other minorities during World War II.
January 27, 1945 is the day the Auschwitz concentration camp in modern-day Poland was liberated by the Soviets.
With the Soviets arriving nearly eight months before the war ended, many had been sent out on a death march and 7,000 sick and dying people remained.
How many people died in the Holocaust?
In the five years that Auschwitz was open, an estimated 1.1 million people were killed at the concentration camp. 90 percent were Jewish and the rest were a mix of Romany people, Soviets and Poles.
One in six Jews killed in World War II died at Auschwitz after being brought to the camp across Europe by train.
By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children died in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps.
Studies have also revealed that the true death toll could be as many as 20 million people.
Jews killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp were brought there across Europe by train
How many people have been killed in other genocides?
Under Pol Pot’s regime, up to three million people were killed between 1975 and 1979 in Cambodia but only three people have been convicted by the war crimes tribunal.
This genocide is depicted in the 2017 film First They Killed My Father, directed by Angelina Jolie.
During the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995, 100,000 people were killed. This included 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from the town of Srebnica in July 1995, known as the largest European massacre since the Holocaust.
In 1994, between 800,000 and two million people, mainly Tutsis, were killed over the course of 100 days during the genocide in Rwanda. 500,000 women were raped in what is thought to be a deliberate attempt to give them HIV, because most of those who survived tested positive for the disease after the genocide.
In Darfur, the genocide saw 400,000 killed but continues to this day. It is the first genocide of the 21st century.