International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Tuesday, January 27, 2026 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day. People around the world observe this day to honor the six million Jewish victims and the millions of others murdered by the Nazi regime.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust: The genocide of one-third of the Jewish people in Europe, and countless numbers of individuals of other minority groups, by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. This date was chosen because it marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945.

The Jewish people were the primary target of the Holocaust. Other groups were also victims: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, people with disabilities, Slavic peoples, trade unionists, socialists and others were imprisoned in concentration camps or killed during the Holocaust.

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day): This is the day observed primarily in Israel and by Jewish communities worldwide. Its date varies based on the Hebrew calendar. In 2026, it will begin at sundown on Monday, April 13, and end at nightfall on Tuesday, April 14.

RUSH - Red Sector A" (from the 1984 Grace Under Pressure)

[This song was inspired by Geddy Lee’s mother, a concentration camp survivor: this is a portrayal of life inside a concentration camp.]

All that we can do is just survive

All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive

Ragged lines of ragged grey

Skeletons, they shuffle away

Shouting guards and smoking guns

Will cut down the unlucky ones

I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed

A wound that will not heal

A heart that cannot feel

Hoping that the horror will recede

Hoping that tomorrow we'll all be freed

Sickness to insanity

Prayer to profanity

Days and weeks and months go by

Don't feel the hunger

Too weak to cry

I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate

Are the liberators here?

Do I hope or do I fear?

For my father and my brother, it's too late

But I must help my mother stand up straight

Are we the last ones left alive?

Are we the only human beings to survive?

RUSH - Red Sector A