27/01/2022 09:25

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

According to the UN General Assembly resolution of November 1, 2005, January 27 is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The purpose of this tragic and memorable date is to warn humanity of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.

The Holocaust is the persecution and mass extermination of Jews by the Nazis during World War II. The victims were killed only on the basis of ethnicity.

Almost one and a half million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis in Ukraine. This is a quarter of all victims of the Holocaust, which is a crime against humanity.

The places of the largest mass executions of Jews in Ukraine are: Babyn Yar (Kyiv) - more than 100,000, Bogdanovka of Odessa region - more than 40,000, Drohobych Yar (Kharkiv) - about 20,000, Kamyanets-Podilsky - 23,600, Dalnyk of Odessa region - about 18,000, Sosonka tract near Rivne - more than 17,000 victims.

On January 27, 1945, fighters of the 1st Ukrainian Front released prisoners from the largest Nazi "death factory" - the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

The Holocaust is not just a problem of one people, but an example of what politics leads to, and the belief in the superiority of one nation over another.

Together with the entire international community, Ukraine unequivocally condemns all possible manifestations of racial and national intolerance.

It is the responsibility of present and future generations to learn the lessons of history. We must not only remember the innocent victims of the past, but also join forces to prevent the recurrence of Holocaust-like tragedies.

On January 20, 2022, the UN General Assembly endorsed a resolution by Germany and Israel that rejects and unequivocally condemns any total or partial denial of the Holocaust as a historic event.

The text of the resolution states that the memory of the crimes of the National Socialists is key to preventing new acts of genocide, and "ignoring the historical fact of those horrific events increases the risk that they will be repeated."

Today, Ukraine shares the grief for the victims of the Holocaust with the rest of the world. Ukrainians, a Holodomor-surviving nation, cannot help but feel the pain of the Holocaust. We remember the tragedy of Babyn Yar. This wound will never heal.