On January 27, Remembrance Day is celebrated in Italy and the rest of the world. It is a date to carry engraved in our hearts, so as not to forget the Shoah and the millions of human beings killed without mercy. Let us not miss this opportunity to reflect on an event that, even today, concerns us all.
Why January 27, 1945 is commemorated
It is the day on which, at the end of the Second World War, the gates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (Poland) were breached by the Soviet army. As early as mid-January, with the Red Army approaching, the SS began evacuating around 60,000 prisoners; another approximately 9,000 were left at Auschwitz because they were ill or extremely weakened: the Nazis intended to eliminate them along with the evidence of the extermination before the Soviets arrived, but they did not have time to complete their plan. The surviving prisoners revealed to the world the horrors that had been committed in the heart of Europe.
Remembrance Day in Italy and around the world
In Italy, “Remembrance Day” was established in 2000, with the aim of reminding us, as Anne Frank wrote, that: «What has happened cannot be erased, but it is possible to prevent it from happening again».
It was officially recognized internationally by the United Nations General Assembly on November 1, 2005, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps.
Number 16670: Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe
In the “factory of death” at Auschwitz-Birkenau, at least one million prisoners were killed: men, women and children. Almost all of them were Jews. But also Poles, Roma, Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war, other enemies of Hitler’s Germany, many Christians, especially Catholics and, in particular, priests and religious. Among them, we remember Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe. He was born on January 7, 1894, in Poland, and at his Baptism they chose the name Raymond for him. He joined the Order of Friars Minor Conventual and took the name Maximilian. He was ordained a priest on April 28, 1918. From that moment, he carried out an intense missionary apostolate in Europe and Asia. In 1941, he was deported to Auschwitz, with the number 16670, and assigned to the most humiliating tasks, such as transporting corpses. When a prisoner managed to escape, according to camp law, ten prisoners were sent to the death bunker. Father Kolbe offered his life in exchange for that of a family man, his fellow prisoner. On August 14, after two weeks of torture, he died saying “Hail Mary”. With his martyrdom, said John Paul II, he brought «victory through love and faith, in a place built to deny faith in God and humanity».
