What We Remember on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Today, January 27, 2024, marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day designated by the United Nations General Assembly to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the other victims of Nazi persecution.
We are all too familiar with the new levels of depravity invented by the Nazis to implement their “Final Solution” to exterminate the Jews. The Nazis murdered on an industrial scale. They starved people, tortured them, made them dig their own graves, then shot them, so their bodies would fall into the graves they had just dug. The Nazis literally worked people to death in forced labor. The Nazis burned entire families, gassed them, used people for grotesque medical experimentations, and committed sexual violence against women and men.
The nations of the world gathered to rid the world of Nazis so that their evil ideology would NEVER AGAIN be visited upon the Jews or anyone else, and to establish rules of war to ensure genocide and rape would not be used as tools of conflict. Yet, today, 79 years after the Holocaust, we find that the world wasn’t so successful in ridding itself from this psychopathic ideology and practice.
“Yet, today, 79 years after the Holocaust, we find that the world wasn’t so successful in ridding itself from this psychopathic ideology and practice.”
While the Nazi party ruled for slightly over a decade, a new neo-Nazism has been allowed to fester for decades, this time rooted in political Islamist extremism, or Islamism, and has found its path through relentless terror attacks perpetrated against the Jewish and Israeli people, enabled by billions of dollars of United Nations aid. This new neo-Nazism is exemplified in the genocidal terror group Hamas, responsible for the October 7, 2023, massacre, the deadliest day for Jews in these nearly 80 years. We say NEVER AGAIN, yet the world remains largely silent – and sometimes vocally in support of those who wish to exterminate the Jews.
On October 7th, this new neo-Nazi ideology showed its most horrific expression, in a way that one would think the world could no longer ignore. Over 1,200 people were slaughtered in Israel, some in their beds. Sexual violence was committed en masse. Children were not spared from the cruel violence. Babies were burned alive in their family ovens as their mothers were forced to listen to their cries. Their limbs were hacked off. Some were beheaded. Children’s eyes were gouged. Girls were raped, tortured and murdered. Women were mutilated while being raped, and then murdered. They continued to be raped until their bones shattered. They continued to be raped after they were dead. Fetuses were ripped from their mothers’ wombs.
Men’s genitals were cut off. Some got hacked to pieces or burned so badly that there was no DNA left to identify them. They actually had to bring in teams of archeologists to conduct special DNA testing used for relics in difficult situations. The elderly, including Holocaust survivors, were brutalized and murdered. A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor was shot and murdered at point-blank range in his own bed by an RPG, followed by an attack with two hand grenades. Holocaust survivors and other innocents were maimed and taken hostage; hundreds of them. Some 136 remain hostages; men, women, children and the elderly.
“Holocaust survivors and other innocents were maimed and taken hostage; hundreds of them. Some 136 remain hostages; men, women, children and the elderly.”
Surely the world would be horrified. Everyone would speak up. Women’s organizations and advocates would be outraged. But their deafening silence came through loud and clear. We had to explain to so-called social justice warriors that rape is wrong – in all situations, under all circumstances. Now we find ourselves equally dismayed, having to explain that the pervasive Holocaust inversion happening now is antisemitism and wrong.
“Surely the world would be horrified. Everyone would speak up. Women’s organizations and advocates would be outraged. But their deafening silence came through loud and clear.”
On this day designated by the United Nations to remember Jewish victims of the Holocaust, we should remember that there are reports United Nations employees from United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) actually participated in the October 7th attack and have been widely celebrating the attack on Telegram, praising Hamas terrorists as ‘heroes’. We should remember UN Women waited nearly two months to condemn the horrific attack via a weak statement. We must also remember the United Nations provides positions of power and leadership to antisemites and makes a mockery of human rights and women’s rights. That the United Nations appointed Iran, one of the main orchestrators of antisemitic terror around the globe and a regime that commits atrocities against its own people daily, as the chair of the Human Rights Council indicates that the United Nations has veered off course. Perhaps on this Holocaust Remembrance Day, it’s time for the United Nations to remember it was founded in the wake of the Holocaust with the central mission of maintaining international peace and security.
“Women’s groups must clearly condemn the sexual violence perpetrated against women, men and children in Israel on October 7th and recommit to refusing to allow rape to be used as a weapon. The silence must end.”
Today, we must remember the victims of the Holocaust and the promise the world made to them: NEVER AGAIN. We must apologize to those survivors who were victimized again on October 7th. While brutal thugs are actively trying to exterminate the Jewish people, on this day, we must hear our leaders speak the truth and demand accountability. We must also remember there are hostages who need to be brought home, who are currently being violated and abused. Women’s groups must clearly condemn the sexual violence perpetrated against women, men and children in Israel on October 7th and recommit to refusing to allow rape to be used as a weapon. The silence must end.
Read our blog “I weep for Israel and for the Jewish people.” AHA supporter Evelyn Markus gives her insights into the conflict in Israel and Hamas here.
Listen to Ayaan speak on Evelyn’s podcast Never Again is Now: discussing global antisemtism here,
Other content you may be interested in
Read AHA’s statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Read Ayaan and AHA Foundation’s Statement Regarding Hamas’ Rape and Torture of Israeli Women and Girls
Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Conflict in Israel – Articles and Media Appearances