On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember Auschwitz, the largest complex of German Nazi concentration camp and killing centers that represents the tragic culmination of years of escalating hatred. It was liberated on January 27, 1945, a date that now marks this solemn international observance.
Auschwitz did not emerge out of a vacuum. It was the twisted endpoint of a long, deliberate process in which the Nazi regime consolidated power, dismantled democratic safeguards, silenced opposition, and built an edifice of dehumanization brick by brick. Propaganda aggressively reframed the so-called “Jewish enemy” as both subhuman and an existential threat. Hundreds of discriminatory laws stripped Jews of citizenship, livelihoods, visibility, and safety. Jews were demonized, attacked, and arrested simply for existing. Long before Auschwitz, seeds were planted in language, laws, and silence.
It is against this historical backdrop that we understand the enormity of what followed. And it is why, eighty-one years later, we gather across the world on International Holocaust Remembrance Day not only to commemorate the victims but also to confront the urgent reality that their suffering cannot be treated as a distant, sealed-off chapter of history. The conditions that made Auschwitz possible did not vanish with the camp’s liberation.
Amid a documented, global resurgence of antisemitism—violent attacks, online harassment, and the re-emergence of toxic, normalized tropes—the Jewish community is experiencing levels of fear and insecurity not seen in decades. This is a crisis that has reached a tipping point in the United States and beyond.
At the same time, we see an old and dangerous playbook reemerging in America—this time directed not only at Jews, but at immigrant communities. We hear rhetoric that paints human beings as “invaders,” “garbage,” or existential threats to the nation’s and Western civilization’s survival. Terms like “influx,” “invasion,” and even “poisoning our blood” are deployed to stoke fear, justify cruelty, and rationalize extreme action. These words are not harmless. They are seeds. They prepare the ground for cruelty by making inhumanity sound rational.
To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day is to remember what inevitably happens when dehumanizing language goes unchallenged. Words soften the ground for cruelty; they make violence first imaginable, then permissible, then inevitable. When people are spoken of as animals or garbage, their humanity becomes negotiable.
And so, we return to the story of one Holocaust survivor—Fritzie Fritzshall—because her life carries the lessons we desperately need today.
In 1944, at age thirteen, Fritzie and her family were deported from Klucarky, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz-Birkenau. While lined up on the selection platform, a prisoner in a striped uniform brushed past and whispered in Yiddish, “You are fifteen. Remember, you are fifteen.” This counsel was essential: camp authorities typically sent the vast majority of young Jewish children under the age of 15 directly to the gas chambers upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other killing centers, classifying them as incapable of work.That single, raw courageous act for Fritzie to lie about her age spared her life in the moment.
Her Aunt Bella, deported weeks earlier, bartered her own food ration to bring Fritzie into her barracks. Each night she held her and whispered that “tomorrow will be better.” That fragile but fierce promise helped Fritzie endure the unimaginable. But Aunt Bella, who had saved Fritzie, could not save herself; within weeks, she was murdered in the gas chambers.
Fritzie survived—a story of brutality, of profound bravery, of desperate kindness, and of the unyielding resilience that carried her into a life devoted to remembrance and education. And through her, we understand the essential purpose of Holocaust memory and institutions like the Illinois Holocaust Museum: to relentlessly tell the story. To ensure that every life taken, every life shattered, and every life saved continues to teach us.
The lesson is unmistakable: democracy does not collapse in a single night, and genocide does not begin with killing. It begins with words. With division. With scapegoating.
So, what is our imperative? We must take an uncompromising stand for humanity. Every time we hear an entire group labeled as “the other,” we push back with force. As Fritzie once said, “Words matter, and my fear is if we allow this to happen today, the flame of hatred is going to get bigger. So, I challenge all of us to stand up and speak out.”
This challenge requires us to combat falsehoods, refuse to share or tolerate hate online, support organizations defending targeted communities, and fiercely hold leaders accountable when rhetoric turns cruel. We teach our children—and remind one another—of our shared, inviolable dignity.
Because Auschwitz teaches us that silence is never neutral.
Because International Holocaust Remembrance Day calls us not only to mourn, but to act with conviction.
The most profound way to honor Fritzie’s story—and the millions of stories that ended before they could fully unfold—is with a living, breathing commitment to action.
May their memory guide us.
May their stories strengthen us.
Defense of humanity requires courage, moral clarity, and our unwavering action.
Bernard Cherkasov, CEO, Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
Kelley Szany, SVP, Education & Exhibitions, Co-Chair, Illinois Holocaust & Genocide Commission