One of the most monstrous manifestations of Hitler's activities and his ideology was the Holocaust - the mass persecution and destruction of European Jews in the period from 1933 to 1945. This became an unprecedented example of destruction in history along with the Armenian genocide at the beginning of the 20th century in the Ottoman Empire. January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, was associated with the first liberation of one of the camps - Auschwitz.
The goal is to destroy
The main goal set by Hitler's henchmen and the authors of the solution of the Jewish question was the targeted extermination of a separate nation. As a result, up to 60% of European Jews died, which amounted to about a third of the total Jewish population. According to various sources, up to 6 million people were killed. Liberation came only in 1945, on January 27. International Holocaust Remembrance Day united inremember not only the dead Jews.
In a broader sense, the Holocaust as a phenomenon of Nazi Germany involves the destruction of other national, homosexual minorities, hopelessly ill, as well as medical experiments. These terms began to designate, in principle, all criminal acts and the ideology of fascism. In particular, up to a third of the total Roma population was exterminated. Not including military casu alties, about ten percent of Poles and approximately three million Red Army prisoners of war were exterminated.
Death Machine
In the mass "cleansing" of human resources, key attention was also paid to the sick. The mentally ill and the disabled were subjected to mass extermination. They also included homosexuals, of whom nine thousand were destroyed. In addition to extermination, the system of the Holocaust assumed the constant improvement of the system of extermination. This also includes the inhumane medical experiments that doctors and scientists of the Wehrmacht carried out on prisoners in the camps.
Truly "industrial" scale of the destruction of people continued until the invasion of the allied forces into the territory of Germany. In this regard, January 27, the day of remembrance for the victims of Nazism, united all the human victims of targeted extermination within the framework of the created camp system.
Hebrew term
Jews themselves much more often use another term - Shoah, which denotes the fascists' policy of targeted destruction of the people and is translated,like a disaster or disaster. It is considered a more correct term than the Holocaust. This term united all those who lived in the occupied territories and died during mass executions, in camps, prisons, ghettos, shelters and forests, while trying to resist, as a member of a partisan, underground movement, during uprisings or while trying to escape, crossing the border, was killed by the Nazis or their supporters. The Jewish word turned out to be as capacious as possible and included all the representatives of the nation who died from the Nazi regime, as well as those who went through the terrible torments of captivity and camps, but still survived. For all of them, January 27th - Holocaust Remembrance Day - is a significant, historical milestone that the Jewish people are unlikely to ever forget.
Figures of death and life
Immediately after the war, the first figures began to appear, reflecting the monstrous atrocities of the Third Reich in Europe and Russia. So, according to the earliest estimates, seven thousand camps and ghettos were organized to achieve various goals in relation to "inferior" people - use as slave labor at construction sites and industries, isolation, punishment, destruction. In addition to the Jews, the inferior included Slavs, Poles, Gypsies, the insane, homosexuals, and the terminally ill. At the beginning of the 21st century, it was officially announced that the Nazis created about twenty thousand such institutions. During the research, employees and scientists of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is located in Washington, came to such conclusions. Ten years later, the same museum announced thatfound new locations for similar death camps, of which, according to their calculations, there were about 42.5 thousand in Europe.
Difficulties in identifying victims
As you know, after the end of the war, the world community characterized the actions of the Nazis as a crime against peace and humanity and decided to judge those who remained. At the famous Nuremberg Trials, which lasted more than ten days, the official number of Jews killed at that time was announced - 6 million. However, this figure certainly does not reflect reality, since there is no list of names of the dead. As Soviet and allied troops approached, the Nazis destroyed any traces that could shed light on the truth. In Jerusalem, at the National Holocaust and Heroism Memorial, there is a list of four million identified by name. But the difficulties of counting the true number of victims are explained by the fact that the Jews killed on the territory of the Soviet Union could not be counted in any way, since everyone was classified as a “Soviet citizen”. In addition, there were many deaths in Europe who had no one to record.
When calculating summary data, scientists use data from censuses taken before and after the war. According to these data, 3 million Jews died in Poland, 1.2 million in the USSR, 800,000 in Belarus, 140,000 in Lithuania and Germany, 70,000 in Latvia, 560,000 in Hungary, and 280,000 in Romania., Holland - 100 thousand, in France and the Czech Republic - 80 thousand each, in Slovakia, Greece, Yugoslavia, from 60 to 70 thousand people were destroyed. No matter how difficult the calculation, for all those who honor the international day of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust, the Nazi atrocities succinctly voiced are a crime against humanity.
Auschwitz
One of the most famous and terrible death camps. And although the Nazis kept a fairly strict record of prisoners here, there is no consensus on the number of victims. At the global process, a figure of 4 million people was called, the SS men who worked in the camp called 2-3 million, various scientists call from 1 to 3.8 million. The liberation of this particular camp marked the day of January 27 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The camp, known in world practice as Auschwitz, was organized near the Polish city of Oswiecim. From 1941 to 1945, 1.4 million people were killed on its territory, of which 1.1 million were Jews. This camp lasted the longest and went down in history as a symbol of the Holocaust. Two years after the end of the war, a museum was organized here, which became part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Because it was the first camp that was liberated during the defeat of the Nazi troops, it became the quintessence of cruelty, inhumanity, true hell on Earth. By decision of the UN, January 27, the day of remembrance for the victims of the genocide of the 2nd World War, has become an international day of remembrance.
Three stages of solving the Jewish question
At the international tribunal in Nuremberg, it was said that the solution of this issue was divided into three stages. Before 1940Germany and the regions occupied by it were cleared of Jews for a year. Until 1942, work was underway to concentrate the entire Jewish population in Poland and Eastern Europe, which was under the control of Germany. Then they were formed throughout the eastern territory of the ghetto, where they were isolated. The third period lasted until the end of the war and meant the complete physical destruction of the Jews. The order for the final decision of the issue was signed directly by Heinrich Himmler himself.
Before the destruction, it was planned, in addition to being placed in the ghetto, to separate them from the other population, the so-called segregation, and it also provided for complete expulsion from public life, confiscation of their property and bringing the Jews to a state where the possibility of survival would be provided only by slave labor. The memory of these crimes is contained in the events held on January 27. The Day of Remembrance of the Victims is dedicated not only to those who died, but, perhaps, first of all, to those who, at the cost of incredible efforts, managed to survive.
Determining the date
It is worth noting that the international day of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust was not immediately designated in the world chronicle of the war. The date was approved by a separate UN resolution, which was adopted on November 1, 2005. Then a special session of the UN General Assembly dedicated to the 60th anniversary of liberation began with a moment of silence. The meeting was attended by the country that became the source of the monstrous catastrophe of European Jewry. Democratic Germany, its spokesman declared at the time, had learned from the dangerous and monstrous mistakes of its past, the methodsmanagement by a wrong, misguided leadership. It is for this country that on January 27, the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany, the annual ceremonies on this occasion are a constant reminder of mistakes. However, the German people understand their responsibility to this people and deliberately do not blur their past. In 2011, this day for the first time included the mention of Roma as victims of the genocide.
Educating the younger generation
Perfect atrocities of man against man remain in the history and memory of mankind forever. However, there are such crimes, the reminder of which must be repeated from time to time in order to prevent, protect, warn. It is to such a crime that the systematic destruction by the Nazis of all those whom they considered inferior races and not deserving the right to life belongs. To better study this period, schools hold open lessons with a demonstration of documentary chronicles, including filming made by the Nazis themselves in camps and mass executions.
“January 27 – Holocaust Remembrance Day” – a class hour with this name is held in many Russian and European schools. These lessons explain in detail the origin of the word and its meaning. In particular, that the word has a Greek biblical root, which means "burnt offering." At the lessons, schoolchildren are shown monstrous slides with photos that have spread around the world after the international tribunal, the meaning of the international tragedy associated with the Holocaust is fixed.
Lighthit like a wedge
The first question that arises when studying the Holocaust is why it was the Jewish people that caused such hatred? Why did the Jews become the main target in the program of destruction of mankind? There are no unequivocal answers to these questions to this day. One of the widespread versions is that at that time the mass consciousness of the Germans was characterized by anti-Semitism, which Hitler managed to inflate to incredible proportions. That is why, under the guise of common interest, he managed to realize his goals of destruction.
Another reason for such connivance of the German people is that the property taken from the Jews after Kristallnacht in November 1938 was transferred to ordinary Germans. Among other reasons, the struggle for their property and for the leading positions that the Jews occupied in society is named as one of the most probable. Beyond this, however, Hitler's rhetoric was dominated by the issue of racial superiority. And everyone who, according to his theory, was worse than the Aryans in terms of signs understandable only to supporters of this idea, needed to be destroyed. And January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is that regular reminder of what orthodox worship and submission to any idea can bring.
International Day of Suffering
Despite the understanding of the international nature of the tragedy, for more than half a century there has not been a single day of memory of the victims of those terrible events. And only in 2005 it was decided to choose a date, which was the day of the release of the firstAuschwitz camps - January 27th. Holocaust Remembrance Day, however, is celebrated on its own date in some countries. In Hungary, April 16, 1944, was chosen as such a day for the mass resettlement of Hungarian Jews in the ghetto. The period of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, which took place in January 1943 and was suppressed, was chosen as a memorable date in Israel. According to the Jewish calendar, this day is Nisan 27. According to the Gregorian calendar, this date coincides with the period April 7 to May 7. In Latvia, July 4 was chosen as a memorable day, when in 1941 all synagogues were burned. On October 9, 1941, the mass deportation of Romanian Jews began. This became the date of the Holocaust in Romania. Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany is celebrated, as well as around the world, on January 27.
