Manitoba marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day

It’s a day where people across the globe are asked to remember and acknowledge the horrors of the Holocaust to ensure such a massive human tragedy will never happen again. 

Here in the city, Winnipeggers will be gathering at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights Monday evening for an event to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, focusing on online anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism in AI and how to combat rising rates of hate speech.

“Today’s an important day, people should not forget what happened in the past,” said Jeff Liberman, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation, which is hosting the event in partnership with the Government of Canada and the museum. 

“It’s important to recognize all the people that were sacrificed, as well as to recognize the survivors,” said Liberman, who is the child of a Holocaust survivor. 

“There was about 40,000 of them that came to Canada to rebuild their lives after the war, and to make sure that people remember what happened during the second World War, and how many people were killed just because they were Jewish.”

Monday also marked the 80-year anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz and Liberman says now, more than ever, it’s important to remember how the Holocaust affected families and still does to this day. 

“My grandfather –  so my father’s father – was a leader in the town in Poland,” he said. 

“And he, and three other leaders of that community, were hung in the streets by the Nazis.  And then my father and his siblings and his mother were all taken by the Nazis, and my father was the only survivor.” 

Leah Gazan, NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre, is also the child of a Holocaust survivor and says genocides like what happened during WWII affect generations. 

“As a result of genocide, myself and my siblings grew up pretty much void of family,” she said. 

“I think about all the genocides going on around the world right now and it has intergenerational impacts and the memories reverberate in our blood memory. So it’s important to lift up all history.”

Gazan and Liberman said it’s critical future generations are educated about the Holocaust, as it’s vital in preventing anti-Semitism, with both welcoming the introduction of Holocaust education into schools across the province starting this school year.