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Holocaust Remembrance Day is a national memorial day (nationaler Gedenktag) in Germany called Der Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (The day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism). It is established in a proclamation issued by Federal President Roman Herzog on January 3, 1996, and set on January 27, the date in 1945 soldiers of the Soviet army liberated the survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.¹

In some Protestant countries, Reformation Day has assumed the position of a holiday either nationally or locally. In Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the systematic destruction of European Jews by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and ’40s.²

In 1951, the Israeli Knesset declared that the 27th day of Nisan is to be Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day of commemoration for the Jews who perished and for those who showed resistance and heroism during the Holocaust. The day is the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising.³

Yad Vashem has decided to initiate an International Youth Congress as part of the proceedings marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2008. This conference, gathering youth leaders from across the globe to meet, converse and make the voice of their generation heard on the subject of shaping Holocaust remembrance and its significance for the future, will be held at Yad Vashem.⁴

Observances and remembrance activities can occur during the week of Remembrance that runs from the Sunday before “Yom Hashoah” (Holocaust Remembrance Day) through the following Sunday. Days of Remembrance are observed by state and local governments, military bases, workplaces, schools, churches, synagogues, and civic centers.⁵