International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust

In 2005, there was a special plenary session of General Assembly of United Nations which was coincided with the sixtieth anniversary of Auschwitz prisoners liberation by Soviet military service directed by the commander Konev. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan started the session so as to pay the tribute to memory of Holocaust victims and act against the new forms of anti-Semitism.

At the verily moment of liberation in the camp historians counted approximately 7.6 thousand prisoners. In opinion of the modern scientists, during a period of Auschwitz existence in the concentration camp the number of people killed varied from 1.1 to 1.6 millions; by the way, most of them were Jews.

During the Nazi regulations in Europe, nearly 6 millions of Jews were dead that compounds 60% of European Jewry and one-third part of world community. The victims of Holocaust also became Gypsies, the Poles, and Soviet army prisoners, black citizens of Germany, distracted and disabled people, not to mention homosexuals. Nevertheless, Holocaust is often connected with the Disaster of European Jewry, because the losses of the Jewish people were the most significant ones.

In several countries apart from International day, government marks own Commemoration Day dedicated to the Holocaust victims; it is usually connected with the history of the definite country in a period of the Second World War. Thus, in Israel this day obtained name of Day of Disaster and Heroism and is celebrated on the 27-th of Jewish month Nisan – in the anniversary of beginning of riot in Warsaw ghetto.

In Hungary, the date of Memorable Day is the 16-th of April, anniversary of start of massive migration of Jews in the inner cities in 1944. In Latvia, it is the 4-th of July, the date of incineration of synagogues in Riga together with Jews staying inside, in 1941. In Romania people remember the 9-th of October, the anniversary of deportation of Jews from Romania, Moldova, and Bukovina into ghettos and concentration camps in 1941.