International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024

The United Nations has designated January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day—a time to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. In 2024, the commemoration coincides with a surge in antisemitism worldwide.

Website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)

As organizations around the world hold various events, I am thinking much closer to home. Many of you know I have spent the last several years writing a novel based on my family’s Holocaust experience. Barring any mishaps, the book, Nothing Really Bad Will Happen, should be available for sale on Amazon.com on March 12, another important day in history.

On March 12, 1938, Hitler annexed Austria, making it part of “Greater Germany.” For my family, this was the date that marked the end of life as they knew it in Vienna, Austria. No one could have foreseen the horrors that followed. In fact, my great-grandfather, Sigmund Lichtenthal, firmly believed nothing really bad would happen—that all the new laws, the stripping of Jews of their identity, even the imprisonment of Jews and other “undesirables” in concentration camps—were simply just another chapter in the suffering Jews experienced throughout time. Three years later, he and his wife were lucky enough to leave their homeland on one of the last ships allowed to sail from Europe to America.

Six million people were not so lucky. Millions more had their lives irreparably altered. Families disappeared. Stories were left untold. And now, hate seems to be rearing its ugly head again. If you are reading this, you likely you know me. If so, I’m preaching to the choir. But, on the chance this post finds someone with a different viewpoint, I simply ask this of you: before you take an action that may hurt another person forever, try to remember we are all human.

Every person’s story, every individual’s experience, matters. As we reflect on the past, let it serve as a reminder that we are all part of a shared human narrative—one that requires understanding, compassion, and a commitment to ensuring that the echoes of history do not resonate with hatred in our present.