In pics: World commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day amid rise of antisemitism

The United Nations marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday in honour of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, and millions of other victims of Nazism. On this day, the UN urges every member state to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.

The theme of this year’s Holocaust remembrance and education is “Memory, Dignity and Justice”. 

Commemorations took place amid a rise of antisemitism that gained traction during lockdowns as the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated hatred online.

Due to the pandemic, many International Holocaust Remembrance Day events were being held online this year again. A small ceremony, however, took place at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp, where World War II Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people in occupied Poland. The memorial site was closed earlier during the pandemic but reopened in June.

 

French Prime Minister Jean Castex (C) stands at the gate during a visit at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland on January 27, 2022, on the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola (L) poses next to Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlander during a special plenary session on International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the EU Parliament in Brussels on January 27, 2022.

Chief Rabbi of France Haim Korsia (3L) places a stone to pay tribute at the International Monument to the Victims of Fascism at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland on January 27, 2022, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day marking the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

The Prime Minister is accompanied by French survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, representatives of associations working to commemorate the Shoah, religious leaders of the Jewish community and secondary school students involved in educational projects on deportation and resistance.

Roses are placed in the hand of one of the statues part of the "Trains to Life - Trains to Death" bronze sculpture at Berlin's Friedrichstrasse street on January 27, 2022, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The sculpture is dedicated to Jewish children saved by so-called "Kindertransporte" which brought them to the United Kingdom and other countries, as well as to children brought by trains to the Nazi death camps.

Israeli architect and sculptor Frank Meisler, who made the sculpture, was himself evacuated with a children's transport and survived the Holocaust, whereas his parents were killed in Auschwitz.

The Speaker of Israel's Knesset parliament Mickey Levy is comforted by Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher as he reacts after delivering a speech during the annual ceremony in memory of Holocaust victims and survivors in the plenary of the Bundestag on January 27, 2022, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

(L-R) German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Speaker of Israel's Knesset parliament Mickey Levy, the President of the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament) Baerbel Bas, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Thuringia's State Premier Bodo Ramelow pose behind a logo of the #WeRemember Campaign in front of Reichstag building that houses the German Bundestag in Berlin on January 27, 2022, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.