World remembers Holocaust as anti-Semitism increases during pandemic
- ‘This cancer has reawakened and hatred of Jews is commonplace again in many countries,’ 87-year-old holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher said
- To tackle Holocaust denial, Unesco and the World Jewish Congress have partnered with TikTok to ensure users are ‘oriented toward verified information’
Holocaust survivors and politicians warned about the resurgence of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial as the world remembered Nazi atrocities and commemorated the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Thursday.
“I have lived in New York for 75 years, but I still remember well the terrible time of horror and hatred,” survivor Inge Auerbacher, 87, told the German parliament. “Unfortunately, this cancer has reawakened and hatred of Jews is commonplace again in many countries in the world, including Germany.”
Anti-Semitism is here – it isn’t just on the extreme fringe. It is a problem of our society – all of society.
Commemorations took place amid a rise of anti-Semitism that gained traction during lockdowns as the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated hatred online. “This sickness must be healed as quickly as possible,” Auerbacher said.
German parliament speaker Baerbel Bas noted that the coronavirus pandemic has acted “like an accelerant” to already burgeoning anti-Semitism. “Anti-Semitism is here – it isn’t just on the extreme fringe, not just among the eternally incorrigible and a few anti-Semitic trolls on the net,” she said. “It is a problem of our society – all of society.”
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in November 2005 establishing the annual commemoration, and chose January 27 – the day that Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945.
Due to the pandemic, many International Holocaust Remembrance Day events were being held online this year again. A small ceremony, however, was to take 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 in the pandemic but reopened in June.