Nationale Holocaust Herdenking 2021 bij het Spiegelmonument in het Wertheimpark. Foto Dirk P.H. Spits.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the victims of the Holocaust worldwide. This memorial day was proclaimed by the United Nations in 2005 and has since been held annually on 27 January.

The origins of Holocaust Remembrance Day

On 1 November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 60/7. In this resolution, it declared 27 January, the liberation date of Auschwitz, to be an international day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust. It also urged Member States to develop educational programmes for young people to prevent the Holocaust from being forgotten and to prevent genocide occurring in the future.

In the resolution, the General Assembly condemned ‘without reservation all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment, or violence against individuals or communities based on ethnicity or religious belief wherever they may occur’.

27 January 1945 Liberation of Auschwitz

On 27 January 1945, the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp was liberated by the Allies. The camp complex at Auschwitz was the largest of its kind. The Nazis murdered more than a million Jews, Roma and Sinti in this camp during World War II.

During the war, close to 60,000 Dutch Jews and 245 Roma and Sinti were deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz. Most of them were murdered in the gas chambers immediately upon arrival.

‘Auschwitz Never Again’ Lecture

Auschwitz has become a universal symbol for the mass genocide of innocent civilians. Every year, the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, in cooperation with the NIOD and the Social Insurance Bank (SVB), organises the 'Auschwitz Never Again’ Lecture. Read more about the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz on the website of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee.

Activities in the context of Holocaust Remembrance Day

Every year on and around Holocaust Remembrance Day, activities are organised worldwide to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides and to teach about discrimination, exclusion, persecution, and mass murder.

Various activities are also held in the Netherlands around 27 January, of which the National Holocaust Remembrance Day is the best known. This commemoration at the Mirror Memorial ‘Auschwitz Never Again’ in the Wertheim Park in Amsterdam is held annually on the last Sunday in January.

For more information on Holocaust Remembrance Day, remembrance activities, or educational activities, please visit the websites of the following organisations:

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