© United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington / Rosian Zerner
Rosian Bagriansky, enfant juive cachée dans la ferme de Lyda Goluboviene à Kulautova. Lituanie, 1944

The International Day of Commemoration in Memory of Victims of the Holocaust gathers hundreds of participants to remember the genocide of the Jewish people and the millions of victims of the nazi regime and to reflect on the role of education in preventing genocide.

A conference is organized before the ceremony in partnership with the Office of the United Nations Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, and several exhibitions are presented
27 January, the day of liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, was proclamed by the United Nations International Day of Commemoration in Memory of Victims of the Holocaust.

The theme of this year’s ceremony, organized in partnership with the Shoah Memorial, will be “Rescue during the Holocaust: the Courage to Care”. Several personalities, such as historian and lawyer Serge Klarsfeld, President of Bulgaria Rossen Plevneliev and French Minister of Education Vincent Peillon, will participate.

Before the ceremony, UNESCO organizes a conference entitled "From Holocaust Education to the Prevention of Genocide: What have we learnt from the Past?" in partnership with the Office of the United Nations Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide. The event will include the participation of UN Special Envoy Assistant Secretary-General Adama Dieng and of several Holocaust and genocide scholars.

Three exhibitions are also presented on this occasion: "Resistance and Rescue in Denmark", by the Shoah Memorial, "Rescue 1943", by the National Archives of Bulgaria and Yad Vashem, and "Rescue: protecting Humanity during the Holocaust", based on Holocaust survivors testimonies, by the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute.