The importance of preserving history on International Holocaust Memorial Day
Today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the German Nazi concentrationand extermination camp. It is also International Holocaust Memorial Day, and I, like so many others whose family intertwines with this dark chapter of history, am thinking about family members that perished during the Holocaust.
As fewer and fewer people who experienced the Holocaust are with us to tell their stories, preserving the memory of the victims and helping to tell the stories of survivors is more important than ever. Survivors like 103-year-old Margot Friedländer, whose family were killed in Auschwitz and who has spent the last decade helping people understand the lessons of the past, while stressing the importance of humanity, responsibility and compassion in the face of hate and intolerance.
This year, the decade-long partnership between the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archive and Google Arts & Culture supports and amplifies the Memorial’s vital digitization efforts that will commemorate and share stories of victims and survivors of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. Today we are publishing a selection of previously unseen artworks created in secret by prisoners like Halina Ołomucka and Jerzy Zieleziński that document the unimaginable suffering, but also reveal hope and resilience. This is the first step in a project to digitize thousands of artifacts that tell the devastating experiences of those who suffered in Auschwitz.
Through a $1 million Google.org grant we are also supporting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation's development of the "Auschwitz in Front of Your Eyes" project, which will make the museum’s live online guided tour experience accessible to everyone, everywhere. Our support will help evolve the technological platform and its accessibility, including introducing live captioning and AI-based translation into multiple languages, as well as partnering with schools to increase access for students.
This work builds on past Google and Google Arts & Culture work with organizations like Yad Vashem, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Polish History Museum and the Jewish Museum Berlin to preserve and amplify the stories, history and experiences of Jewish people and others impacted by the horrors of the Holocaust.
I am humbled to join the commemoration event held today at the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, with the remaining survivors in attendance. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum will stream the event on its YouTube channel.
We remain committed to our shared responsibility to promote Holocaust remembrance to ensure the past is not forgotten.
[The author is on the advisory board of the Margot Friedländer Foundation.]
