Key Takeaways:
- On Holocaust Remembrance Day, many world leaders stripped the day of its Jewish specificity, omitting that Jews were the target and turning the Holocaust into a generalized historical tragedy.
- This erasure reflects a dangerous decline in historical literacy. Vague language and moral abstractions distort history, normalize Jewish erasure, and allow antisemitism to persist unchecked.
- Honoring the six million Jews needlessly murdered means naming the industrialized hatred that killed them and rejecting rhetoric that erases their suffering.
Following the horrors of the Holocaust, the United Nations chose January 27 – date of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – to commemorate the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.
Remarkably, this past Holocaust Remembrance Day, much of the international community entirely forgot the group of people who were liberated on that day – the Jews. Instead of recognizing the industrialized scale of the genocide that was created specifically to rid the world of the Jewish people, the international community universalized its remarks, using vague language that grouped the Holocaust into just another world event.
These days, the UN is not such a great friend to the Jewish people. Nonetheless, it is still shocking that the world body’s statement on Holocaust remembrance failed to acknowledge the six million murdered Jews.
The statement warped the remembrance of the Holocaust, stating that it started with “apathy & silence in the face of injustice,” and the “dehumanization of the other.” But the Holocaust began by exclusively casting the Jewish people as the scapegoats of society, allowing a deep hatred to penetrate every crevice of society. It was more than dehumanization, but a tactic directed to cast the Jews as a different breed and thus deserving of the brutal degradation of Jewish life in European society. These lies enabled the average person to genuinely believe that the crimes being committed against the Jewish people were for the benefit of society at large.
“The genocide started with apathy & silence in the face of injustice, and with the corrosive dehumanization of the other.
Today and always, we need to remember this. And we must stand up for our shared humanity.”
– @UNHumanRights chief @volker_turk #HolocaustRemembranceDay pic.twitter.com/b5k1PP9dgh
— United Nations Geneva (@UNGeneva) January 27, 2026
The host of the BBC’s Radio 4 Today program remarked that buildings would be illuminated to commemorate the “six million people murdered by the Nazi regime.” Not Jews, just “people.”
The BBC has since apologized. That it happened at all, however, points to a troubling erosion of historical literacy. Although the error might have been made without any malicious intent, Holocaust education and awareness are on the decline. Statements such as these can further shape the misinformation that contributes to the reduction in accurate Holocaust knowledge and the normalization of Jewish erasure.
This is an absolute disgrace.@bbcnews @BBCr4today completely erased the Jews from Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Apparently “six million PEOPLE” were murdered.
“people”? Were they just randomly chosen?
Have they no shame at all? pic.twitter.com/HCMGD4dr7J— David Collier (@mishtal) January 27, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged the lives of six million Jews. However, he added “the millions of others senselessly murdered by the Nazi regime.” By doing so, he deliberately hollowed out the very meaning of the Holocaust – the specific campaign targeting the Jewish people – diluting it with millions of others who were victims of the Nazis. He effectively turned the Holocaust from a Jewish association into a universal one.
Mamdani’s actions on combating antisemitism have yet to match his words. The Jewish community in New York continues to be the largest target of hate crimes, and the mayor has actively contributed to this through his past language, including the refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” and openly supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS). It gives antisemites a cushion for their beliefs, signaling that rhetoric that targets Jews can be normalized or excused so long as they vow to “reject all forms of hatred,” as Mamdani did.
Today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we honor the six million Jewish lives — and the millions of others — senselessly murdered by the Nazi regime. We remember not only the unimaginable loss, but the warning history leaves us. This day calls on us to do more than…
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) January 27, 2026
The call of “never again” is meant to preserve the memory of the six million Jews and is a call to ensure no such genocide ever can occur again. It calls on nations to reject moral passivity, to resist the normalization of antisemitism, and to intervene before rhetoric hardens into annihilation. Still, Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo inverted the Holocaust to make an offensive and inaccurate comparison between Israel and the Nazi regime, despite no genocide being committed in Gaza.
Did the senator know that comparing Israeli actions to those of the Nazis is specifically called out in the globally-recognized IHRA working definition of antisemitism? Sadly, it appears “never again” means nothing of the sort.
On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us pledge that “never again” means “never again”, even when Israel is the perpetrator #Gaza https://t.co/32ROC0uyDW
— Yuen Pau Woo (@yuenpauwoo) January 27, 2026
The Pope made sure to note that “the Church rejects any discrimination or harassment.” While the Holocaust may have started that way, it certainly did not end with mere discrimination or harassment.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, I would like to recall that the Church remains faithful to the unwavering position of the Declaration #NostraAetate against every form of antisemitism. The Church rejects any discrimination or harassment based on ethnicity, language, nationality, or…
— Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex) January 27, 2026
U.S. Vice President JD Vance similarly made a statement without mentioning the Jews once. Erasing the Jewish people from their own genocide reframes the Holocaust as a generic historical event that, while distressing, is made out to seem as though it could have happened to anyone. But it didn’t. It was a specific industrial form of mass murder to rid the world of its Jewish population. The murder of six million Jews should not have been what it took to bring an “enduring lesson” to humanity about the compliance and systemic hatred that enabled the genocide.
Today we remember the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, the millions of stories of individual bravery and heroism, and one of the enduring lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history: that while humans create beautiful things and are full of compassion,… pic.twitter.com/2UwFcy4Kmp
— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 27, 2026
The Holocaust was not meant as a moral fable to be remembered once a year on January 27 as a way to teach humanity lessons about tolerance and hatred in general. To respect the catastrophe the Jewish people faced, the world must acknowledge the methodical hatred directed specifically at the Jewish people, culminating in their genocide. The six million Jewish victims deserve to have their sanctity preserved – not diluted into abstraction.
Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!
