History of Holocaust Remembrance Day

History of Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today, April 14, 2026, marks the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day in America. It is a part of the eight Holocaust Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH), established by the U.S. Congress as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust.

The U.S. Army remembers the six million Jews and millions of other victims of the Holocaust and honors the survivors’ resilience. It runs from the Sunday before Yom HaShoah through the following Sunday.

In Hebrew, Holocaust Remembrance Day is called Yom HaShoah, from the word “shoah” meaning catastrophe.

• In the United States, Days of Remembrance run from the Sunday before Yom HaShoah through the following Sunday.

• In Israel, it is a national holiday. On the eve of Yom HaShoah and on the day itself, places of public entertainment are closed by law. Israeli television airs Holocaust documentaries and talk shows related to the Holocaust, and low-key songs are played on the radio. Flags on public buildings are flown at half-mast.

The date for Holocaust Remembrance Day corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew lunisolar calendar. Consequently, the date varies throughout April and May. It was established in 1951 by Israel’s Parliament. It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

I have visited and written about three of the most renowned among the almost 44,000 Concentration Camps established between 1933 and 1945 by the Nazi regime.

Holocaust in Poland

Auschwitz

Auschwitz: Arbeit Macht Frei “work makes free.” Author’s photo 

Auschwitz, even today, has a spirit of death and foreboding. Located in Poland, the country with the largest Jewish population at the time of World War II, it was the largest and deadliest of the camps. Built in 1940, it was an extermination camp, or a “killing center,” the euphemism for mass murder. But it was started as a prison camp and a slave-labor camp.

Between 1.1 and 1.5 million people died there of malnutrition and disease, but mostly from deadly Zyklon B gas (hydrogen cyanide). 90% were Jews.

At the height of its operation between 1943 and 44, six thousand Jews, on average, were gassed each day. Just walking through the gate made you feel surrounded by darkness.

Birkenau

Birkenau train terminus. Author’s photo 

In October 1941, work began on Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, located outside the nearby village of Brzezinka, just north of the Auschwitz camp, as you can see from the aerial photo below, labeled “B.”

Birkenau above Auschwitz, upper left. Author’s photo from camp

In the late winter of 1943, trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau regularly carrying Jews from virtually every German-occupied country of Europe—from as far north as Norway to the Greek island of Rhodes off the coast of Turkey in the south, from the French slopes of the Pyrenees in the west to the easternmost reaches of German-occupied Poland and the Baltic states.

Holocaust in Germany

Dachau

Dachau gate: Arbeit Macht Frei “work makes free”

Dachau was the first Concentration Camp, the prototype. It became the training center for other camps. It was initially established in March 1933 near Munich, Germany, soon after Hitler rose to power.

At first, Dachau held only political opponents, but more and more groups were imprisoned there over time. It became a forced-labor camp, with workers working the night shift at the local munitions factory. Thousands died at Dachau from starvation, maltreatment, and disease. I have written a 4-part series of articles on the background and liberation of Dachau, which you can find here.

I visited Dachau 50 years after my father had liberated the camp on April 29, 1945. World War II ended only a few weeks later. I relate his story in full, as he told it to me half a century ago here.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– The Life of Reason, by Professor George Santayana, Harvard, 1905

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com