International Holocaust Remembrance Day Marks 70th Anniversary Of Auschwitz Liberation
FARMINGTON HILLS (WWJ) - Tuesday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day -- the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp and a day to commemorate the six million victims of the holocaust.
The Holocaust Museum and Memorial Center in Farmington Hills is holding special events and extended hours in commemoration of the day. Steven Goldman, the center's executive director, said a key highlight of the day is a showing of "Watchers of the Sky" -- a recent film that follows the efforts of attorney Raphael Lemkin to establish the Genocide Convention, defining and declaring mass killings of ethnic groups a crime.
"He spent the rest of his life talking and writing and trying to convince the world that genocide was indeed a problem and genocide was a word that could be defined," Lemkin said. "Since the holocaust has ended, over 100 million people have died as a result of genocide. We talk about 'never again' and it seems to be more often 'again and again.'"
Jeanette Olson, a holocaust survivor, spends a large portion of her time trying to encourage the "never again" mindset.
"We cannot let the world forget. It didn't happen just to us, but we're the example of what can happen to the world," she said.
Olson's parents spent several years hiding from the Nazis, placing her in the care of a Christian couple she thought were her real parents until the end of the war.
"My parents had never done anything. They were just Jewish, that's all," she said. "It was for six years that they went through in hiding. It was a matter of always being one step ahead of the Nazis; always looking behind you. But we were so fortunate because six million didn't make it."
As a survivor, Olson now speaks to groups at the Holocaust Museum and Memorial Center so that future generations will understand how this happened, and why it can't happen again.
"You have to watch out that this cancer doesn't grow. You have to stop it. You have to do something to stop it in its tracks," she said. "It can happen today and it is happening today."
The Holocaust Memorial Center is open from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday. Admission to the museum is FREE all day. Self-guided tours will be available between 5 and 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.holocaustcenter.org.