NEW YORK – The World Jewish Congress (WJC) today launched its fifth annual #WeRemember campaign to combat antisemitism and all forms of hatred, genocide and xenophobia. The campaign, which runs through International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, promotes the importance and advancement of Holocaust education. The initiative is particularly timely this year, as social media platforms have been used to disseminate harmful, dangerous and racist misinformation, conspiracy myths, and Holocaust denial and distortion.
With the theme, “Learn from the past, protect the future,” the 2021 #WeRemember initiative encourages participants from around the world to take pictures of themselves holding a sign with the words “We Remember,” and then post their pictures to social media using the hashtag #WeRemember, to spread the message that “never again” must mean never again.
Young people today know shockingly little about the Holocaust and the fate of European Jewry under the Nazis. Sixty-three percent of U.S. millennials and Gen Z don’t know that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and 48 percent cannot name a single concentration camp or ghetto established during World War II, according to a September 2020 Claims Conference survey.
“As eye-witness memories of the Holocaust fade, and as our world has confronted the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing rising levels of antisemitism, xenophobia, racist ideologies and Holocaust denial,” said Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress. “We must heed the horrific lessons of the past and learn from and share the stories of Holocaust survivors to honor the memory of the six million Jews the Nazis killed and to ensure today’s escalation of hatred does not become a repetition of those atrocities.
“Join the #WeRemember campaign to underscore the lessons learned from the past and protect our present and future generations from hate.”
Additional resources on how to support the #WeRemember campaign and honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust are available at weremember.wjc.org. The site links to facts about the Holocaust, as well as Holocaust survivor testimonies, on AboutHolocaust.org, a comprehensive online resource developed by the WJC in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The WJC invites the public to join two virtual commemorations:
- Monday, January 25, at 10 a.m. EST: “Lest We Forget” – Exhibition Opening & Virtual Commemoration from Paris
- Hosted by the World Jewish Congress together with UNESCO, the Permanent Missions to UNESCO of the European Union, Austria, Germany, and France, and the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF)
- Watch online
2. Wednesday, January 27, at 9 a.m. EST: International Holocaust Remembrance Day – Virtual Commemoration from Auschwitz
- Featured speakers: Tova Friedman, survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Amb. Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, Dr. Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
- Hosted by the World Jewish Congress and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
- Watch online
The #WeRemember campaign will symbolically culminate on January 27, at the site of the former German Nazi concentration camp with a live-streaming of participant photographs on a screen erected next to the Auschwitz gate and cattle car, as a testament to the Jewish people’s survival in the face of adversity.
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