Auschwitz’s Liberation Decreed As Memorial Day

Vowing that the horror should never happen again, Germany on Wednesday made the day the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated a day of remembrance for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

Naming Jan. 27 for the annual memorial, President Roman Herzog said the country should continue the kind of remembrances of World War II’s “racial mania and genocide” that were held last year for the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.

“Remembrance must not end,” Herzog said in a statement. “It must also remind future generations to be vigilant.”

The Nazis murdered 6 million European Jews and hundreds of thousands of other people, including gays, Gypsies and the disabled.

The biggest concentration camp was Auschwitz, where more than 1 million people were slaughtered in the gas chambers. It was liberated Jan. 27, 1945.

Although not a work-free holiday, the Day of Remembrance of Victims of National Socialism will be a day for schools and universities to study Nazi history and for parliament to reflect on the victims, officials said.

It must not only mourn the suffering and deaths, Herzog said, but it must also “counteract any danger of a repetition.”