International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 26, 2024
On January 27, UBC community members are encouraged to pause to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, designated by the United Nations to honour the memory of six million people of Jewish identity and millions of others who were killed through the genocidal regime of Nazi Germany, including those targeted based on their ability, ethnicity, religious and political beliefs, and/or sexual orientation (for example, people with disabilities, 2SLGTBQIA+ people, Roma, Black people, Slavic people and Jehova’s witnesses). It is also a day to recognize and resist the racial and religious bias, stereotypes, and intolerance that historically enabled human atrocities against Jewish peoples and which persist to this day. According to Statistics Canada, anti-Semitic hate crimes represented 15 per cent of the 2021 police-reported hate crimes in Canada, and they increased by 47 per cent over the previous year. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established as an aspirational international humanitarian effort to promote universal human rights.
Join UBC students, faculty, and staff in learning more about the importance of preserving Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism, and to reflect on our individual and collective responsibilities to safeguard human rights locally and globally. Click here for more information.
While hate speech and bias motived violence are criminal offenses in Canada and should be reported to the police, bias motivated discrimination contravenes UBC’s Discrimination Policy, which is guided by the BC Human Rights Code. For more information about how to report hate, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination on campus, view the UBC Discrimination Complaint Process found on the Human Rights Advising page.
Arig al Shaibah, PhD
Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion
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