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United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has said this year’s International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust will focus on the role of historic sites and museums in Holocaust education. UNESCO says learning about the history of the Holocaust is essential to understanding the causes of societies’ descent into genocide and creating awareness about the need to nurture peace and human rights to prevent mass violence in today’s world.  

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place annually on January 27. It commemorates the genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed an estimated six million Jewish people, two million Romani people, 250,000 mentally and physically disabled people, and 9,000 homosexual men between 1941 and 1945.

According to a statement released on Tuesday, UNESCO said events marking the commemoration will take place at the organisation’s headquarters in Paris from January 24-26, ahead of the official day, January 27 – which marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet troops in 1945.

“Every year around this date, UNESCO commemorates the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people and other Nazi crimes, reaffirming its commitment to promote education about the history of the Holocaust, and fight racism and anti-Semitism,” UNESCO said.

The theme of this year’s commemoration is: “Educating for a Better Future: The Role of Historic Sites and Museums in Holocaust Education." This will be the subject of a keynote address on January 26 by Serge Klarsfeld, UNESCO Honorary Ambassador and Special Envoy for Education about the History of the Holocaust and the Prevention of Genocide. It will be followed by a round table discussion featuring Piotr Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Poland), Jacques Fredj, Director of the Shoah Memorial (France), Dorit Novak, General Director of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center (Israel), and Agnès Sajaloli, Director of the Memorial of the internment camp of Rivesaltes (France). It will be moderated by historian Jean-Yves Potel.

The display of the last personal effects people had managed to keep up to the time of their execution will be inaugurated by the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on the same day. They will be open to the public until February 17, the UN organisation said.

Ahead of the day, young students and history teachers will examine, on January 24, the challenging question: How to Deconstruct Hate Speech? This youth event is held as part of the UNESCO Campus conferences organized in partnership with the Engie Foundation.

An Official Ceremony will close the Day of Commemoration (January 26), with a concert by world-renowned musicians Martha Argerich (piano) and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Ivry Gitlis (violin). The ceremony will also feature a personal testimony by Raphael Esrail, President of the Union of Auschwitz Deportees, and a reading by actress Anne-Catherine Dutoit of texts written by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel.

UNESCO’s events for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day are organized in partnership with the Shoah Memorial (France) and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Poland), with support from the Permanent Delegation of France to UNESCO, the Permanent Delegation of the Principality of Monaco to UNESCO and Metin Arditi, UNESCO Special Envoy for Intercultural Dialogue.