April 15 is Holocaust Remembrance Day. But how did we come to commemorate the genocide of European Jewry in this way when survivors could barely speak of the horrors they endured?
The documentary Night will Fall tells the story of German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, a film made by the Allied forces who filmed the scenes of the Nazi concentration camps as they liberated them…
In late January 1945, Hungarian teenager Bart Stern hid in a pile of bodies to avoid being killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz. He survived, but not one of his friends escaped. Soon afterwards, the Red Army…
As the world pauses to remember the Holocaust, it is important to at what children around the world are learning about the horrific events of 70 years ago and their aftermath. A recent research project…
On January 29 1945 Victor Klemperer, a Jewish academic in Dresden, recorded in his diary being told by a friend about a speech on the radio given by the émigré writer Thomas Mann: According to it, the…
As we approach the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, the victims of the Holocaust stand, with a good reason, at the centre of our attention. It is survivors’ memoirs that shaped…
Warning: this article contains spoilers. Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida has rightly garnered plaudits and acclaim wherever it has been shown: its black-and-white camerawork, empty spaces and unhurried pace create…
The sale of Nazi memorabilia is banned or at least restricted in a number of European countries, including Germany and France, yet it continues to be a feature of British auction houses. Anti-Semites in…
On July 23 1944, Soviet Army troops discovered the huge Nazi concentration camp of Majdanek just outside the Polish city of Lublin, virtually intact. Along with a few hundred ill and emaciated survivors…
Gypsies, tinkers, pikeys, travellers – everyone knows the terms, not to mention the even more derogatory ones. The Roma and Sinti people have been the subject of prejudice and discrimination in Europe…
A one-off programme on History’s H2 channel and Sky News has broadcast for the first time some film footage I discovered depicting the Holocaust. This may seem unremarkable: in the digital age, smartphones…
We rarely ask ourselves why we should remember the Holocaust. We simply assume that we should. However, if we only go through the motions uttering phrases such as “we remember” and “never again”, remembering…
The large collection of paintings and drawings found in the Munich flat of the 80-year-old recluse, Cornelius Gurlitt, which came to wide public attention earlier this month, raises serious moral and legal…
A recent report shows that anti-Semitic attacks worldwide were up by 30% last year, and that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia in that time almost doubled. The report - released by the…
“Too soon” is a phrase that gets bandied about in response to jokes about tragedy or misfortune. The implication is that a certain amount of time needs to pass before we can poke fun at loss or grief…
It’s hard to imagine that a whole race of people can be forgotten. But if no one chooses to remember them, genocide can mean just that, leaving a large hole in our history and dooming future minorities…