BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) – Thursday, the world remembered the six-million Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust and survivors who are still living.
Thursday marked 77 years since Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp. Most survivors are now in their 90’s.
During a city council meeting Tuesday, Birmingham adopted a proclamation declaring January 27 Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Magic City, honoring our local holocaust survivors and Jewish community. It’s part of an international day of remembrance.
Joyce Shevin with the Jewish Federation Relations Council said the message following the Holocaust is still relevant today. She hopes we as a community can continue to choose love and not hate.
“We all must understand the need to recognize this tragic history and educate others so that we may work together to assure that no one need feel like the other, that hate never prevails and that never again is not an empty promise,” said Shevin.
Holocaust Memorial Day also remembers people killed in genocides that followed, such as in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.