January 27th:
Holocaust Rememberance Day
Why did the Holocaust happen?
A holocaust such as the one known with a capital H does not happen overnight. Instead, I’d say that this is a perfect example of the boiling frog phenomenon.
First came Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 that popularized eugenics. Darwin presented the theory of Darwinism: organisms will adapt to their environment so that, in the end, only the traits most suitable for life and survival will remain. The theory was then grossly oversimplified and applied to humans. And so, eugenics was created. Suddenly, there was this idea that certain traits were undesirable and should be eradicated from the human race, and that meant, of course, that some “races” were inherently superior.
Then, the First World War saw a rise of strong European nationalism, which was accompanied by a fair bit of supremacist and xenophobic ideologies. How was it that a French man could kill a German man while they both had wives back home? Because the French knew France to be inherently superior, just as the German knew Germany to be. In the end, the French man would’ve thought himself proven right, as Germany lost the war.
Dejected, humiliated, and indebted, the average German wanted nothing more than a scapegoat to explain how their perfect country ended up in such disarray. That scapegoat came on a silver platter in 1919, when General Paul van Hindenburg, commander in chief of the German army, was asked to identify the causes of the defeat. He chose to blame the Communists, the Socialists and the Jewish population, which comprised less than one percent of the German people, saying that the German army had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by the lack of support from leaders back home. This theory became fuel to the fire of antisemitism. The year was also marked by the creation of DAP, the ‘German Workers Party’, later known as the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party or, in short, the Nazis.
The Nazi Party used the growing hatred of the Jews and the popularity of eugenic ideas to cement themselves into the German public. To quote their claims; ‘Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood (…) Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.’ They proved rather popular, as Adolf Hitler, leader of the party, was appointed as chancellor on January 30, 1933. Not even three months later, on March 22, 100 communist prisoners were sent to Dachau, the first concentration camp.
After the death of Hindenburg, the president at the time, on August 2, 1934, Hitler combined the position of chancellor and president, declaring himself the Fuhrer. The elections that made him chancellor would prove to be the last for the unified German people until 1990.
The effects of this genocide are felt even today. The international Jewish population was about 16.5 million people in 1939. According to a 2020 census, the population is currently around 15 million.
Why January 27th?
January 27, 1945, was marked by the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Little known fact, Auschwitz was composed of three distinct districts: Birkenau was the biggest of the three and accounted for 90% of the deaths. That is to say, approximately a million people lost their lives in Birkenau. Since the date was officially declared the official annual International Day of Commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust in 2005, it has become an opportunity for us to reflect on the dangers of racism and antisemitism, as well as to honour victims and survivors.
Why is this important?
I feel a need to share the details of the making of a holocaust because of the sense of doom and recognition that fill me when I read the daily news of our downstairs neighbours.
When a camp is built to detain illegal immigrants, although the line between legal and illegal is now inexistent, when those people are given so little food that they show signs of starvation, when there is no fresh water, when the lack of proper lavatories creates a breeding ground for disease, how can I not make the connection? Concentration camps were not only deadly because of the gas chambers and the firing squads, countless people met their end because of the same aforementioned traits of the ICE detention camp “Alligator Alcatraz”. Anne Frank didn’t die in a gas chamber; she and her sister Margot died of typhus.
We learned of the cruelty of concentration camps and we cried reading Anne Frank’s diary. We swore to never let those events ever repeat themselves. And yet, not even a hundred years later, it seems that we have learned absolutely nothing. I do not think that the current American government will have a sudden change of heart and stop its grotesque treatment of human beings. I do not want to assume, either, that we as Canadians are as separated from the United States as we think ourselves to be. Change happens slower than we think. Hatred, bigotry, and cruelty are not learned overnight, and if we do not collectively choose to acknowledge this amplification in xenophobia, things will certainly get worse. I refuse to only care about an issue once it starts affecting me; it’s politics, it’s got everything to do with us.
With each year that passes, Holocaust survivors get scarcer and we lose our direct connection to the event, leaving the door open to misinformation. Although we cannot regain those millions of souls lost, I feel that the least we can do is commemorate them, so that we do not forget the worst parts of our history.
First They Came
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Pastor Martin Niemoller
Sources
« Auschwitz | Holocaust Encyclopedia » . Holocaust Encyclopedia, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz-1.
« Events in the history of the Holocaust – The Holocaust Explained : Designed for schools » . The Wiener Holocaust Library, www.theholocaustexplained.org/events-in-the-history-of-the-holocaust-1933-to-1939.
« First They Came – by Pastor Martin Niemöller – Holocaust Memorial Day Trust » . Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, 30 avril 2020, hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller.
« International Holocaust Remembrance Day » . Government Of Canada, 22 novembre 2024, www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/canada-holocaust/international-remembrance-day.html.
« “Alligator Alcatraz” violates US and international law » . Genocide Watch, 27 août 2025, www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/alligator-alcatraz-violates-us-and-international-law.
« Why did the Holocaust happen ? – The Holocaust Explained : Designed for schools » . The Wiener Holocaust Library, 30 janvier 1933, www.theholocaustexplained.org/how-and-why/why.
