Holocaust remembered

A GLOBAL initiative to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day today has gone viral across social media platforms.

The #WeRemember campaign was launched two weeks ago by the World Jewish Congress (WJC) for the commemoration, which is marked each year on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Nearly half a million people have uploaded their pictures on to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #WeRemember from countries across the globe. People from all faiths and backgrounds including South Africa, Colombia, Russia, France, Uruguay and Kyrgyzstan have taken on the challenge.

To launch the campaign, WJC gathered together a group of nine Holocaust survivors and used a video to explain the importance of taking part in this project and reminding the world that such atrocities should never happen again.

In total, 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust 1.1 million of them children. Six million of those victims were Jewish. Other groups targeted by the Nazis were Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, disabled people, and Roma people.

Two-thirds of the Jewish people living in Europe at the time of World War II were killed by the Nazis.

“In 2017, we must remember the Holocaust because anti-Semitism is on the rise again across the globe, the survivors among us are dwindling, Holocaust deniers are relentless, genocides still occurs worldwide – never again seems to happen again and again in Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda,” AJC said.

@Lanc_02