On 27th January 1945 the Russian Red Army soldiers liberated Auschwitz, the notorious death factory and most brutal Nazi concentration camp. The Nazis had murdered there with cold industrial efficiency and calculation. After the Red Army soldiers, followed by the American allies, had seen the first dreadful spectacles in the liberated Auschwitz (and other concentration camps), the brutality of Nazi crimes came into the public domain, and literally shocked the Allied forces.

On 12th April 1945 General Bradley recalled amongst others: “The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stocade… More than 3,200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves. Others lay in the streets, where they had fallen. Lice crawled over the yellowed skin of their sharp, bony frames…”

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on Holocaust Remembrance Day, proclaiming 27th January the Intenational Holocaust Remembrance Day. This day is marked in Slovenia, not only as the Holocaust Remembrance Day, but as a Remembrance Day for all the victims of Nazism, Fascism, and the Holocaust within the Slovenian territory. When concentration camps’ victims in Slovenia and abroad were being spoken about, the Slovenian concentration camps’ prisoners had been forgotten and ignored for many years. It is right to remember them with dignity after so many years.

Remembering the Holocaust requires courage, because only then can it truly be expected for ashes and unmarked graves of millions of victims to become consecrated ground, from which human hope, respect and moral courage constantly grow. (adapted from: The Holocaust 1933-1945: Courage, to commemorate, the exhibition)

In 2010, the ‘Shoah – Let Us Remember’ project was designed as a broad-based project in cooperation with the ‘Prva gimnazija Maribor’ secondary school, and supported by the ZRC SAZU (Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), within which exhibitions, scientific gatherings, and cultural events are prepared, accompanied by occasional printed publications.

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This project was designed as an interdisciplinary project, and is being financially supported by ITF (now IHRA) from 2011 until 2014, to provide the main principles for a long-term and whole-Slovenian project. When doing so, we hope to obtain help from state institutions, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministries covering Education and Culture.