The Ohio Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission is hosting a commemoration ceremony to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, which was officially designated by the United Nations in 2005 as a global day of reflection to remember the 6 million Jews who perished during World War II and the Holocaust.
This year’s event at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, is slated to begin at 11 a.m. local time.
“This year will mark many significant anniversaries of events that led to the end of the Second World War in 1945. The liberation of the largest death camp in Europe, Auschwitz, where over 1.1 million Jews were murdered, was a pivotal discovery for the world to learn about Nazi atrocities,” said Andrea Brookover, executive director of the commission. “It is crucial for us to honor those we have lost and to honor the lives of the survivors, many of whom made Ohio their home in the years after the war. It is our mission to ensure the memory of the victims live on through remembrance and education.”
Ohio Holocaust survivor families will be in attendance at the program. OHGMEC Commissioner Robbie Friedman, who is a grandson of survivors, will lead a candle-lighting ceremony to pay tribute to the six million. Friedman remembers his grandmother telling him, “Survivors don’t need to remember. We spend our lives trying to forget. It’s you who needs to remember for us.”
The program will feature U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Deborah Ashenhurst (ret.), director of the Ohio Department of Veteran Services and OHGMEC commissioner; and Barry Jackisch, associate professor of history and the Philip Markowicz Endowed Professor of Judaism and Jewish Biblical Studies at the University of Toledo. Their remarks will provide historical insight into Auschwitz’s liberation and the significance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The event will conclude with a procession to the Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial on the Statehouse grounds, where attendees will lay stones in memory of the 6 million who perished. It is a Jewish tradition to lay stones on graves, as a stone never dies, and symbolizes the permanence of memory and legacy.
The program will be available via livestream on the Ohio Channel and can be accessed here.
