International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD). The date marks the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi’s largest concentration and extermination camp. 1.1 million people were killed in the camp; almost 1 million of them were Jews. On this day in 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau and its remaining prisoners.
Primo Levi, an Italian Jew, chronicled all he and others endured Auschwitz, including the camp's liberation, in Survival in Auschwitz : the Nazi assault on humanity. Tova Friedman also survived Auschwitz. She was among the youngest survivors, and shared her experiences decades later.
The camp has become a symbol of both unimaginable cruelty, but also of tremendous resilience. In 2005, the UN’s Resolution 60/7 named January 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day in honor of the victims of Nazism and to encourage Holocaust education. Six million Jews were killed during the Nazi regime, along with millions of others, including Roma-Sinti, homosexuals, communists, Catholics, and the mentally or physically disabled.
Commemorative Lectures
McGill's International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemorative Lectures honour the memory of Holocaust victims, raise awareness about antisemitism, and foster education and scholarship to combat hatred and promote understanding.
On January 27, 2026, McGill University will welcome Professor Aliza Luft, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. Professor Luft will share her research on the Holocaust in France in a lecture titled “Between God and Vichy: Religion, Race, and the Holocaust in France."
Date: January 27, 2026
Time: 5:00-6:30 PM
Location: Thomson House Ballroom, 3650 McTavish
Professor Luft's research examines the fluctuating relationships between social identity, ideology, and interpersonal, socio-political action in contexts marked by war and violence. Her book, Sacred Treason: Race, Religion, and The Holocaust in France, is forthcoming with Harvard University Press. Another book, the second Handbook of The Sociology of Morality, co-authored with Shai Dromi and Steve Hitlin, was recently published by Springer. She has also published numerous op-Eds and interviews in The Washington Post; New Yorker; LA Times; NY Times, and elsewhere.
