Holocaust Memorial Day is an occasion not to forget the atrocities committed during the Second World War, particularly the Shoah, the extermination of millions of Jews, to honor those who opposed that tragedy and, above all, to build a better future.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet army tanks broke through the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Since that day, this camp has become the symbolic site of the discrimination and suffering of those who were interned simply because they were Jewish or Roma, a Catholic priest or nun, or simply because they followed another faith or held political views different from those of those in power.
That is why, every year around the world, January 27 is observed as Holocaust Memorial Day, the occasion on which the millions of Holocaust victims imprisoned and killed in Nazi extermination camps before and during the Second World War are remembered.
Six million of these victims belonged to the Jewish people, the overwhelming majority of those targeted by this ethnic cleansing operation, as well as 2 million Russian prisoners; 2 million non-Jewish Poles; 250,000 people with disabilities; 500,000 Roma and Sinti; 15,000 homosexuals; and millions of Slavs, dissidents, and “undesirables,” including more than 8,000 Italians.
On this dark page in the history of the twentieth century, the victims also included thousands of Catholic priests and religious who were killed for opposing Nazism and for their staunch defense of religious freedom. Among them was the Polish Franciscan Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a martyr of faith and charity. In Rome, there is the shining example of Don Pietro, who, killed at the Ardeatine Caves for giving shelter to Jews and other persecuted people, managed to free his hands and bless his fellow sufferers.
The reason for establishing Remembrance Day, however, is not merely to commemorate an enormous tragedy: it is also a way to look toward the future, as Liliana Segre reminded us: “Cultivating Memory is still a precious vaccine against indifference today, and in a world so full of injustice and suffering, it helps us remember that each of us has a conscience and can use it.”
Remembering the past is important for building a better future. We must commit ourselves to combating every form of discrimination and hatred and to promoting a culture of peace and peaceful coexistence among peoples.
Every day, there are many small acts of discrimination against those who seem different from us. Often, we ourselves are responsible for them without realizing it.
Remembrance Day reminds us that we do not speak out loudly enough against this discrimination and that, often, out of convenience and opportunism, we hide behind indifference toward those who are isolated and rejected.
The dreams and hopes of all the victims of the Holocaust were extinguished in the name of an inhumane ideology that tolerates neither plurality nor diversity. To prevent such a tragedy from happening again, we must remember: “A country that ignores its yesterday cannot have a tomorrow. Memory is a precious and necessary asset to cultivate. It is up to us to do so. What is memory for? To defend democracy” (Liliana Segre).
Remembering is a duty for all of us, so that we never forget the atrocities of the past and can build a better future for future generations.
The following sentence is engraved in thirty languages on the monument at the Dachau concentration camp: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (George Santayana). So, to ensure that what happened never happens again, let us engrave it in our memory to inspire a renewed commitment to building a world of peace in fraternity.
