Can we keep the memory fresh? Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. But as survivors die of old age, memories are starting to fade.
Holocaust survivors warn of forgetting
Can we keep the memory fresh? Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. But as survivors die of old age, memories are starting to fade.
Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis murdered six million people in concentration campsA large prison for people held without legal justification, such as political prisoners or persecuted minorities. The first concentration camps were built by British colonial rulers in South Africa, but the term is most associated with Nazi camps, some of which were used to execute Jewish and other inmates as well as to imprison them.. The majority of victims were JewishRelating or belonging to the religion of Judaism. . Auschwitz was the largest of a network of 40 camps across Germany and its occupied territories.
After Nazi Germany was defeated, the Holocaust became the ultimate symbol of human evil.
Many believe it is important to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive as a warning to stop it from ever happening again.
There are now signs, however, that the Holocaust is fading from view, partly because of the dwindling number of survivors: there are now only around 220,000 left. There will soon be no living survivors at all.
Art offers one solution to keeping memories alive. There are many powerful first-hand accounts in literature, including Primo Levi's If This Is a Man (1947), which depicts his time in Auschwitz in a gentle, humaneHaving or showing compassion. way.
The Holocaust has also been powerfully captured on film and in paintings.
In Berlin the pavements are speckled with stumbling stones. These are little brass plates that give the name and dates of victims, outside buildings where they lived.
Can we keep the memory fresh?
Yes! The recent success of films like A Real Pain and the award-winning Zone of Interest show that the Holocaust continues to haunt us today.
No! As the last survivors die, the Holocaust will inevitably pass out of living memory and into the history books.
Concentration camps - A large prison for people held without legal justification, such as political prisoners or persecuted minorities. The first concentration camps were built by British colonial rulers in South Africa, but the term is most associated with Nazi camps, some of which were used to execute Jewish and other inmates as well as to imprison them.
Jewish - Relating or belonging to the religion of Judaism.
Humane - Having or showing compassion.
Holocaust survivors warn of forgetting

Glossary
Concentration camps - A large prison for people held without legal justification, such as political prisoners or persecuted minorities. The first concentration camps were built by British colonial rulers in South Africa, but the term is most associated with Nazi camps, some of which were used to execute Jewish and other inmates as well as to imprison them.
Jewish - Relating or belonging to the religion of Judaism.
Humane - Having or showing compassion.