Task Force For International Cooperation On Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research

On 27 January 1945, the advancing Soviet army entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau  extermination camp complex, liberating more than 7000 remaining prisoners, for the most part ill or dying. Days earlier, the SS had forced nearly 60,000 prisoners to evacuate the camp and embark on the infamous Death Marches in which many thousands lost their lives. In 2005, the UN General Assembly designated 27 January as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, the day upon which, every year, the world would mark and remember the Holocaust and its victims. 65 years on from the liberation of Auschwitz, it is more important than ever to remind ourselves of the universal lessons of the Holocaust.