International communities commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the six million Jews and millions of others who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

The 20th century saw two waves of Ashkenazi Jewish immigration to Costa Rica from Western Europe: the first from 1929 to 1930, and the second from 1945-1948, in the aftermath of World War II.

Some 190 Holocaust survivors reached Costa Rica after the end of World War II, and the World Jewish Congress estimates about 3,000 Jewish people live in Costa Rica today.

You can watch the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s commemoration in the below video:

A memorial hosted by the United Nations on Wednesday highlighted the danger of rising antisemitism and xenophobia.

“Today, white supremacists and neo-Nazis are resurgent, organizing and recruiting across borders, intensifying their efforts to deny, distort and rewrite history including the Holocaust,” United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has given them new opportunities to target minorities, based on religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, disability and immigration status. We must make urgent joint efforts to stop them.”