International Holocaust Remembrance Day - Jan 27

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January, is an international memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust, the Genocide that resulted in the annihilation of 6 million Jews, 2 million Gypsies (Roma and Sinti), 15,000 homosexual people and millions of others by the Nazi  regime and its collaborators.

Estimates based on figures obtained since the fall of the Soviet Union indicates some ten to eleven million civilians and prisoners of war were intentionally murdered by the Nazi regime.

The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages.Where Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen  murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. The occupiers required Jews and Romani to be confined in overcrowded Ghettos  before being transported by freight train to Extermination Camps  where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in Gas Chambers.


27 January is the date, in 1945, when the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet Troops

It was designated by the UN General Assembly Resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005 during the 42nd plenary session