About International Holocaust Remembrance Day
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on 27 January, the date Soviet troops reached Auschwitz in 1945. In 2027 it falls on Wednesday, 27 January 2027. The UN General Assembly fixed the date in 2005 to remember the six million Jews and the members of other groups murdered by Nazi Germany, and to reject denial of those facts.
What is International Holocaust Remembrance Day?
It is the United Nations day of commemoration for the victims of the Holocaust, held every 27 January. In 2027 it falls on Wednesday, 27 January 2027. The General Assembly adopted resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005, which fixed the date, set up a Holocaust outreach programme at the UN, asked member states to teach the subject in schools, and rejected any denial of the Holocaust, whether in whole or in part.
Each year the UN holds a ceremony in the General Assembly Hall in New York, where survivors speak. Most member states hold their own events, usually with a reading of names, a candle and a minute of silence.
What happened on 27 January 1945?
On that day Soviet troops reached the Auschwitz camp complex in occupied Poland and found roughly 7,000 prisoners still alive across Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Monowitz. Most were starving or too ill to move. The SS had already marched tens of thousands of other prisoners west, away from the advancing front, in what became known as the death marches.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that about 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, and that about 1.1 million of them were murdered there, around a million of them Jews.
Auschwitz was not the first camp reached by Allied forces, nor the last. The date was chosen because Auschwitz has become the place most people can name.
Who was killed?
| Group | Estimated number killed |
|---|---|
| Jews across Europe | About six million, the central target of the Nazi programme of extermination |
| Soviet prisoners of war | About 3.3 million, through execution, starvation, disease and exposure |
| Roma and Sinti | Between 250,000 and 500,000 |
| Disabled people in Germany | About 250,000, under the programme the Nazi state called "euthanasia" |
Nazi Germany also imprisoned and killed Poles and other Slavs, political opponents, gay men, Jehovah's Witnesses and others. These figures are estimates built from German records, wartime documents and demographic studies before and after the war, and historians continue to refine them.
Is International Holocaust Remembrance Day observed in India?
Not officially. There is no Indian government circular for 27 January, and it would in any case collide with Republic Day preparations. It is not a holiday.
What happens in India is smaller. The Israeli embassy in Delhi and the consulate in Mumbai hold commemorations, sometimes with Indian officials present; in 2026 the Consul General in Mumbai said the Governor of Maharashtra would attend the ceremony there. Mumbai's synagogues, serving India's Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jewish communities, hold their own services. The UN Information Centre in New Delhi, European missions and some colleges run talks and film screenings.
India has one real thread into this history. Several thousand Jews fleeing Nazi Europe reached British India in the 1930s and 1940s, many of them travelling overland through the Soviet Union and Tehran. The historian Atina Grossmann, whose own parents took that route, describes Baghdadi Jews and refugee Jews working side by side in the Bombay Jewish Relief Committee, and in Calcutta. Relations with the older Bene Israel community, she notes, were more distant.
The swastika is not the Hakenkreuz
This is the point Indian readers most often need, and it comes up every January.
The swastika is an ancient sign, drawn on doorways at Diwali, on ledgers at Dhanteras, on wedding invitations and in Jain and Buddhist practice. The word is Sanskrit, from a root meaning well-being, and the motif is thousands of years old.
The Nazi Party adopted the hooked cross, in German the Hakenkreuz, as its emblem in 1920. Nineteenth-century German scholars had noticed the kinship between Sanskrit and European languages and spun out of it a fantasy about an ancestral "Aryan" race, which the Nazis then used. The symbol on a Nazi flag and the one your grandmother draws on the threshold have a shared distant ancestry and nothing else in common.
Knowing both things matters. A Jewish visitor seeing the mark on an Indian shop front is not seeing what an Indian family means by it. And an Indian writing about this day should not treat the Nazi use as a harmless coincidence either.
What to say on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Do
- Keep it short and plain. "We remember" carries more than a paragraph of adjectives.
- Name who was killed. Six million Jews, and also Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of war and others.
- If you post, post a fact or a survivor's name, not a stock photograph of a camp.
Avoid
- Do not write "Happy" anything, and do not send a card with decoration on it.
- Do not use the Holocaust as a comparison for a political argument you are having today.
- Do not ask a Jewish colleague what happened to their family. Let them offer it.
- Do not post images of bodies or of prisoners. Dignity applies to the dead too.
Thinking of you today. Nothing needed from you. Just wanted you to know I know what 27 January is.
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany, along with Roma and Sinti, disabled people and prisoners of war. We read the names because numbers are easy to forget.
27 January is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the day Auschwitz was reached in 1945. We will hold a minute of silence at 11 am. Attendance is entirely your choice.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, a piece of our own history: several thousand Jews fleeing Nazi Europe reached India in the 1930s and 1940s, and Bombay's Jewish relief committee helped settle them.
Related days: Human Rights Day, International Day for Tolerance, International Day of Peace and World Refugee Day.
How to wish someone on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
There is no greeting for this day, and no wish. Messages that work are short, plain and about remembering. If you are writing to a Jewish friend or colleague, "I am thinking of you today" is enough; do not ask about their family's history unless they raise it. For a school or workplace, name what is being remembered rather than using the word "tragedy" alone.
Write a few lines in your own words, pick a design and share it as one link on WhatsApp, Instagram or anywhere else. They open an animated card made just for them, with no app and no sign-up.
Language tip: English, Hindi + recipient language.
When is International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2026 and 2027?
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is on 27 Jan every year. Only the weekday changes.
- 2026
- 2027
Frequently asked questions
When is International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2027?
International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2027 falls on Wednesday, 27 January 2027.
Why is Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January?
27 January 1945 is the day Soviet forces reached the Auschwitz camp complex in occupied Poland and found about 7,000 prisoners still alive. The UN General Assembly fixed that date as the international day of commemoration through resolution 60/7, adopted on 1 November 2005.
Is International Holocaust Remembrance Day the same as Yom HaShoah?
No. Yom HaShoah is Israel's national day of remembrance, held on 27 Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, which falls in April or May and is tied to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. 27 January is the United Nations date, tied to the liberation of Auschwitz, and is the one most countries use.
How many people were killed in the Holocaust?
About six million Jews were murdered. Nazi Germany also killed around 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, between 250,000 and 500,000 Roma and Sinti, and about 250,000 disabled people in Germany, along with Poles, political prisoners and others.
Is International Holocaust Remembrance Day marked in India?
There is no official Indian observance and it is not a holiday. Commemorations are held by the Israeli embassy and consulate, by Mumbai's synagogues serving the Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jewish communities, and by the UN Information Centre in New Delhi, along with some colleges and cultural institutes.
What do you say on Holocaust Remembrance Day?
Say that you remember, and say what is being remembered. "Remembering the six million murdered in the Holocaust, and everyone else the Nazis killed" is a complete message. There is no wish and no greeting for this day.
Does the Indian swastika have anything to do with the Nazi symbol?
They share a distant origin as an ancient motif, but nothing else. In Hindu, Jain and Buddhist practice the swastika is a sign of well-being, drawn at weddings and festivals. The Nazi Party adopted the hooked cross, the Hakenkreuz, as its emblem in 1920, and in Europe and Israel that is the only meaning it now carries.
Last verified by the Kehdoo team on .