In 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a United Nations resolution designated 27 January the 'International Holocaust Remembrance Day'.

Holocaust, a word of Greek origin meaning 'sacrifice by fire', is the word used to describe the persecution and subsequent mass murder of 6 million European Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Between 1933 and 1945, other groups were also targeted by the Nazi regime and its allies, among them Roma, disabled and Slavic people, as well as homosexuals, and members of religious and political groups.