International Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27 was designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the UN General Assembly in 2005. That date marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 1945, and is intended to honor the victims of the industrialized killing perpetrated by the Germans during World War II—not just at the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau, but also at the other German killing centers such as Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec and Majdanek.

In 2013, the theme for international remembrance events centered on individuals and groups who risked their lives to save tens of thousands of Jews, Roma and Sinti, and others from near certain death under the Germans during the war.

We were highly honored that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in cooperation with the Polish Embassy in Washington, D.C., chose as the topic of its 2013 Holocaust Remembrance Day event Captain Witold Pilecki and his most comprehensive report on his secret undercover mission at Auschwitz, which we published in English for the first time in our award-winning book The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery.

The event featured Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, Director of Research at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and Dr. Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History, Yale University, in a discussion moderated by Dr. Edna Friedberg, Historian, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Click here for more details and photos about this event.

Dr. Timothy Snyder, in concluding his remarks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum event honoring Captain Witold Pilecki and The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, sums up three extraordinary things about Pilecki’s report, below: