On this day of remembrance, we all too often have to acknowledge the insidious yet formidable presence of anti-Semitism in writings, in political action, and in everyday life.
To memory, one must add increased vigilance and education for new generations so that the unspeakable is never repeated.
Auschwitz* is the largest concentration complex of the Third Reich, both a concentration camp and an extermination camp.*
The concentration camp, run by the SS, was created on April 27, 1940, at the initiative of Heinrich Himmler; it was complemented by an extermination camp (whose construction began at the end of 1941) and by a second concentration camp intended for forced labor (created in the spring of 1942). These camps were liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945.
Over five years, more than one million one hundred thousand men, women, and children died at Auschwitz, including 900,000 on the very day of their arrival, generally by train. Of all the victims, 90% were Jewish, about one million.
Due to its size, Auschwitz is regarded as the symbol of the mass murders committed by the Nazis, and more specifically of the Holocaust, during which nearly six million Jews were murdered.
