LONDON (Sputnik) – Wednesday marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the millions of victims of Nazi Germany. The date coincides with the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by the Soviet Army in 1945.
"The Holocaust teaches us about the dangers of allowing prejudice and discrimination to run unchecked," Hammond said in a statement published on the Foreign Office website.
The "Don't Stand By" theme adopted this year reminds humankind to remember that the Holocaust occurred "because people stood by while prejudice grew into discrimination and discrimination into mass extermination", he added.
"We remember the people who risked their own lives to save their neighbors, colleagues, friends and, in many cases, complete strangers," Hammond stressed.
Around 1.4 million are estimated to have been killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest extermination camp network, 1.1 million of them Jews.
