U.S. Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024: Introduction

In 2024, May 5-12 marks the Days of Remembrance in the United States to commemorate the Holocaust. Established by Congress in 1980 with the founding of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, it reminds us that over 17 million people were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. This includes 6 million Jews and over 11 million non-Jewish people who were specifically targeted and killed, including Roma and Sinti, Polish and Slavic Peoples, people with disabilities, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LGBTQ+ persons, and Nazi political opponents.  Days of Remembrance pays tribute to the victims, resistors, and rescuers.

Palomar College Library presents this digital display to promote learning and teaching about the Holocaust

Flyer from library's 2023 display

Jews from Subcarpathian, Russia getting off the deportation train and assembling on the ramp at the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp (killing center) Photograph by Bernhardt Walter/Ernst Hofmann, May 1944.  Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, via Yad Vashem (Public Domain)

An alarming increase in antiSemitic incidents in the United States and lack of knowledge about the Holocaust (or denial that it was real) are just two reminders of the ongoing need for education on the causes, occurences, and consequences. Being vigilant to acts of hate, bigotry, and racism that set the stage for horrific events like the Holocaust and other genocides is an important step toward preventing them in the future. To quote Spanish philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Last year (2023), Days of Remembrance coincides with the 80th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 (observed by the Jewish Community as Yom HaShoah on April 18, 2023, or the 27th Day of Nisan on the Hebrew Calendar). Before, during, and after the uprising over 350,000 Jews from the ghetto were murdered while resisting German troops and police.

Days of Remembrance differs from International Holocaust Remembrance Day which is held each year on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation in 1945 of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi killing center. International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly to honor all the victims, survivors, and rescuers of Nazism and other genocides that took place in the 20th Century before and after the Holocaust.

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