Central Asian, Russian & East European Studies

Holocaust Memorial Day 2013

Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January) is a national event in the United Kingdom dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of The Holocaust. It was first held in January 2001 and has been on the same date every year since. The chosen date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in 1945, the date also chosen for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and some other national Holocaust Memorial Days.

Watch the video Lessons Learnt to find out more about January 27th 2013

The Holocaust

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to annihilate all of Europe’s Jews. It is this event which we now refer to as The Holocaust or the Shoah, a variation on a Hebrew word.
The Nazis spread their hatred through the use of propaganda and legislation designed to deny human rights to Jews and used centuries of anti-semitism as their foundation. By the end of the Holocaust, 6 million Jewish men, women and children had been murdered in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration and extermination camps, and many millions more were affected by the Nazis’ extreme policies.

As soon as the Nazis came to power they introduced laws and legislation intended to deny Jews the freedom of movement, work and other basic rights. Boycotts of Jewish doctors, lawyers and shops began in 1933 and by 1935 Jews were not allowed to join the civil service or the army. The introduction of the Nuremberg laws in September 1935 further increased Jewish marginalisation. Jews were banned from marrying non-Jews and their citizenship was removed including their right to vote. As time progressed, more restrictions were brought in and Jews were barred from all professional occupations and Jewish children were prohibited from attending public schools. In 1938, further laws decreed that men must take the middle name ‘Israel’ and women ‘Sarah’, all German Jews would have their passports marked with a ‘J’

On 9 November 1938 the Nazis initiated pogroms (an organized persecution of a particular group) against the Jews in all Nazi territories. It was a night of vandalism, violence and persecution that many have since described as ‘the beginning of the Holocaust’. 91 Jews were murdered, 30,000 were arrested and 191 synagogues were destroyed. This night became known as Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass, so called because of the smashed glass which covered the streets from the shops which were looted.

See below for Routledge's range of books about the Holocaust.

More information about the Holocaust can be found here.

Related Products

After the Holocaust

Challenging the Myth of Silence

Edited by David Cesarani, Eric J. Sundquist

For the last decade scholars have been questioning the idea that the Holocaust was not talked about in any way until well into the 1970s. After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence is the first collection of authoritative, original scholarship to expose a serious misreading of the past on...

Published September 28th 2011 by Routledge
Collaboration with the Nazis

Public Discourse after the Holocaust

Edited by Roni Stauber

Series: Routledge Jewish Studies Series

This book examines the changes in representing collaboration, during the Holocaust, especially in the destruction of European Jewry, in the public discourse and the historiography of various countries in Europe that were occupied by the Germans, or were considered, at least during part of the war,...

Published August 3rd 2010 by Routledge
The Holocaust and Representations of Jews

History and Identity in the Museum

By K. Hannah Holtschneider

Series: Routledge Jewish Studies Series

The Holocaust and Representations of Jews examines how prominent national exhibitions in Europe represent the Jewish minority and its cultural and religious self-understandings, historically and today, in particular in the context of the Holocaust. Insights from the New Museology are brought to...

Published July 4th 2011 by Routledge
The Routledge History of the Holocaust

Edited by Jonathan C. Friedman

Series: Routledge Histories

The genocide of Jewish and non-Jewish civilians perpetrated by the German regime during World War Two continues to confront scholars with elusive questions even after nearly seventy years and hundreds of studies. This multi-contributory work is a landmark publication that sees experts renowned in...

Published July 11th 2012 by Routledge