On 27 January, the world commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. It was on this day in 1945 that the troops of the First Ukrainian Front liberated the prisoners of the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau in Auschwitz, known as the ‘Death Factory’. According to various estimates, between 1.5 and 2.2 million people died in this concentration camp during its existence.
During the Holocaust (1933-1945), about 6 million Jews were persecuted and killed by the Nazis. This horrific genocide became a symbol of ruthless terror. Today, Russian propaganda, accusing Ukraine of Nazism, uses this rhetoric to justify its crimes against the Ukrainian people.
Victims of Russian aggression include Wanda Obyedkova, a 91-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor in Mariupol who died in her cellars under Russian shelling on 4 April 2022, and Borys Romanchenko, a 96-year-old Nazi concentration camp survivor who was killed by a Russian missile in Kharkiv on 18 March 2022. In addition, Russian troops have been attacking symbolic places of remembrance, such as Drobytsky Yar in Kharkiv, Babyn Yar in Kyiv, Jewish cemeteries and synagogues.
Every generation must know the truth about the Holocaust to prevent such crimes from happening again. Eternal memory to the victims of the Holocaust, whose lives were destroyed by a cruel system.