SMU Daily Campus
This Tuesday, individuals around the world participated in International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Around 300 survivors of Auschwitz returned to the concentration camp to share stories, provide words of encouragement and honor those lives that were lost over 70 years ago.
“Auschwitz cries out with the pain of immense suffering and pleads for a future of respect, peace and encounter among peoples,” Pope Francis tweeted Tuesday.
More than 11 million lives were claimed died during the Holocaust, six million of them being Jewish Europeans. Other groups targeted included homosexuals, the disabled, Roma Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses and those in opposition to the Nazi regime. One million people were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau alone during its four years of operation.
“All the negative forces that coalesced to make the Holocaust possible — prejudice, bigotry and hatred — still drive attacks against religious and ethnic minorities,” said Rick Halperin, director of the Embrey Human Rights Program in an SMU press release. “That’s why it’s more imperative than ever to learn the lessons of the Holocaust to create a safer and more tolerant world.” READ MORE