Holocaust Day

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an international memorial day on 27 January commemorating the tragedy of the Holocaust that occurred during the Second World War. It commemorates the genocide that resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews and 11 million others, by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. It was designated by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005 during the 42nd plenary session. The resolution came after a special session was held earlier that year on 24 January 2005 during which the United Nations General Assembly marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust On 27 January 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp, was liberated by the Red Army. Prior to the 60/7 resolution, there had been national days of commemoration, such as Germany's Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (The Day of Remembrance for the victims of National Socialism), established in a proclamation issued by Federal President Roman Herzog on 3 January 1996; and the Holocaust memorial day observed every 27 January since 2001 in the UK. The Holocaust Remembrance Day is also a national event in the United Kingdom and in Italy. The United States also celebrates International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27^th and since 1979 The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH) an 8 day period in April to remember the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Between March 1933 and May 1945 the Germans ran around 42,500 Concentration, Labor, POW and Death Camps and Ghettos throughout occupied Europe. Between 15-20 million men, women and children were imprisoned and/or died at these sites.

That number includes:

8 Death Camps (in German-Occupied Poland: Auschwitz, Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Majdanek, Maly Trostenets in German-Occupied-Belarus) and Sajmiste in German-Occupied Serbia)

980 Concentration Camps

 30,000 Slave Labor Camps

 1,150 Jewish Ghettos

500 brothels filled with sex slaves

8 Disabled Killing Centers (Am Spiegelgrund Clinic in Austria, Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in Germany, Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre in Germany, Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre in Germany, Hadamar Euthanasia Centre in Germany,  Hartheim Euthanasia Centre in Germany, Soldau Concentration Camp in German-Occupied Poland and Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centrein Germany)

1,000 POW camps

 January 27th: Liberation of Auschwitz   The Auschwitz Concentration and Death Camp (40 miles from Krakow, Poland) was run by the Germans from 1940-1945. It held around 1.3 million prisoners with 1.1 million men, women and children murdered here alone. It was divided into 44 sub-camps. Auschwitz 1 (the main camp held 30,000 prisoners and had the first Gas Chamber where from 1941-1942 60,000 people were gassed); Auschwitz 2 (Auschwitz- Birkenau was the main Death Camp with 4 Gas Chambers and crematoria.)The rest of the Auschwitz sub-camps were Concentration and Labor camps. There were 7,000 German SS guards (less than 800 were ever tried for their crimes) at Auschwitz. At least 802 prisoners tried to escape from Auschwitz with 144 of those being successful. From 1943-1944 (the height of the gassings at Auschwitz) 6,000 men, women and children were gassed every day. On October 7, 1944 the Sonderkommando (prisoners, mostly Jews, forced by the Germans to work in the gas chambers and crematoria) revolted. 3 SS were killed and 12 SS were injured. 451 Sonderkommandos were killed.  In November 1944 (with the Red Army approaching) the Germans stopped gassing at Auschwitz and forced the Sonderkommandos to dig up and burn thousands of bodies. On January 17, 1945 the Germans forced 58,000 prisoners to leave Auschwitz on a Death March (anyone who stopped was shot on the road.) On January 20, 1945 the Germans blew-up the Gas Chambers. On January 27, 1945 the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz. Due to the vast extent of the camp area, at least four divisions took part in liberating the camp: 100th Rifle Division (established in Vologda, Russia), 322nd Rifle Division (Gorky, Russia), 286th Rifle Division (Leningrad), and 107th Motor Rifle Division (Tambov, Russia)The soldiers found 7,500 prisoners alive and over 600 corpses. Among items found by the Soviet soldiers were 370,000 men's suits, 837,000 women's garments, and 7.7 tons (8.5 short tons) of human hair. 4,500 of the 7,500 liberated prisoners were sent to hospital barracks where around 500 died after the liberation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_of_Auschwitz_concentration_camp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day