LEST WE FORGET
INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST – MONDAY, 27 JANUARY 2026
In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honour the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.
This coming Tuesday, 27th January, Jewish people the world over will observe the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest concentration camp established by the Germans which was liberated by the Red Army on the 27th January 1945.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the infamous concentration and extermination camp where more than a million Jews, Gypsies, Soviets, and Poles were murdered.
Jewish people say: “Lest we forget”.
You see, Jewish people will never forget the terrible, evil event known as the Holocaust. Yet judging by the appalling rise in anti-Semitism, the world seems to have already forgotten.
On Saturday, 7 October 2023, the Nation of Israel, while observing the Shabbat and celebrating the joyous day of ‘Simchat Torah’, was treacherously attacked by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
More than 1,200 Jewish citizens, mostly civilians, were brutally murdered, including women, children, babies and 260 teenagers at a music festival.
Around 250 men, women, the elderly, children and a baby were taken hostage, and we thank the L-rd that all the hostages who weren’t brutally murdered by cowardly Hamas terrorists have been released, the last twenty living hostages being released on October 13, 2025 as part of the Gaza peace plan. At this time of writing this article, the body of one hostage, Ran Gvili, is still held in the Gaza Strip.
At first the world sympathized with Israel and most condemned the attacks calling Hamas a brutal, savage terrorist organisation – which it is.
However as soon as Israel declared war on Hamas in order to defend herself from such an horrendous attack ever happening again, one by one people, nations and sadly a number of churches and church denominations have turned against Israel and are condemning Israel.
Human rights organizations are painting Israel as inhumane as they defend themselves against the monsters known as Hamas.
The world and some churches accuse Israel of genocide, seemingly pushing the absolutely unprovoked genocide committed against the Jewish people in Israel on October 7, 2023 to the side.
However even more than this, it seems that much of the world, as well as some churches and some church denominations, have forgotten that Israel is in a war it never started and never asked for.
And yes, sadly over 72,437 Gazans have been reportedly killed in the Gaza war which was started by Hamas, the very terrorist organisation they voted into power on 25 January 2006 to run Gaza.
They ran Gaza alright! They ran Gaza right into the ground, and the genocidal attack which took place on innocent Israelis on October7, 2023 is the reason that over 72,437 Gazans have sadly been killed.
This was the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
I remember my beloved wife of blessed memory and I standing in front of the Holocaust memorial in a beautiful park in Odessa, Ukraine.
Hearing the account of how the Jewish people were rounded up from the very spot on which my beloved wife and I were standing, and then marched to the railway station to be herded into wooden cattle cars like animals sent to the slaughter brought anguish to our hearts.
As a Jew who grew up attending a Jewish school and who was always involved with the Jewish community, I have heard many accounts of the Holocaust and seen too many ghastly images of the annihilation of my fellow Jewish brothers and sisters during the Holocaust.
Visiting ‘Yad Vashem’ in Jerusalem as well as other Holocaust museums throughout the world brings the reality of the Holocaust to life.
But for the first time in our lives, my precious wife and I were standing at one of the very spots where this inhumane event took place.
Yet many deny that the Holocaust took place, and most Holocaust denial claims imply - or openly state - that the Holocaust is a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples.
For this reason, Holocaust denial is generally considered to be one of the most repulsive forms of anti-Semitism.
Well I have news for all Holocaust deniers – The Holocaust was real; it happened; and it took place exactly as described.
Why do I say this so emphatically? Because while in Odessa, my wife and I personally met with and spoke to Holocaust survivors. We saw the numbers tattooed on their arms with our own eyes, and we heard their horrifying stories with our own ears.
We stood on the very streets where Jewish blood was spilled, and we stood on the very spot from which innocent Jewish men, women and children were marched to the train station to be herded into cattle cars like animals and sent to be murdered in concentration camps.
We were in the very city where five Jewish Ghettos were erected, housing innocent Jewish men, women and children in inhumane conditions.
To my horror and sadness, my wife and I were told that when members of the Jewish agency, who support Holocaust survivors in Odessa, went into the streets of Odessa to ask the younger generation what the Holocaust was, some of the answers were the following: “The Holocaust is something out of China”; “The Holocaust is a plant of some sort”.
The youth of today, who live in a city where the atrocities of the Holocaust took place 81 short years ago, have no clue about the Holocaust. And Holocaust survivors live among them - WHAT A DISGRACE!
However, is it any different amongst other nations – even amongst much of the church?
Many Gentiles and professing Christians may know about the Holocaust, but do they really care? After all ‘it’s a Jewish thing’.
Do they care about the more than 1,200 Jewish people murdered, tortured, raped and some taken hostage on 7 October 2023? Apparently not!
I am not saying that this is the general attitude of the church and of church leaders, but sadly I do have to say that I have been to many churches – both large and small – and the indifference amongst some church leaders to the Jewish people (Almighty G-d’s Chosen People to this day) and Israel (Almighty G-d’s own Land) dismays and saddens me.
We spoke with the director of the Jewish agency who supports Holocaust survivors in Odessa, himself a holocaust survivor. I promised him that as long as I had breath in my body, I would not let the world - and the church - forget about the horrific, brutal murder of twelve million innocent men, women and children, six million of whom were Jewish - whose only crime was that they were Jewish.
I will make sure that, wherever and whenever I can, I will relate what happened to six million Jews in the Holocaust; and so should you – especially if you are Jewish or a professing Christian.
In my opinion, keeping quiet about the Holocaust is just as bad as denying the Holocaust.
I believe that G-d will not only judge those who perpetrated the Holocaust; He will also judge those who deny that the Holocaust happened.
G-d will judge Hamas, and He will also judge those who stand with Hamas … especially churches who stand with Hamas.
And G-d will judge churches who are indifferent to the Jewish people, Israel and Jerusalem – which is contrary to Almighty G-d’s Biblical commands.
Sadly, they don’t know and certainly don’t understand the Bible. Or maybe they are just content to disobey G-d’s commands.
We cannot let the world forget the genocide that took place a generation ago. We cannot let the world dismiss the murder of six million Jews as ‘history’.
If we do that, we then condone the genocide that is taking place right now in many countries throughout the world; as this, too, is ‘history in the making’.
I wrote before: “If we deny the Holocaust and if we do not learn the lessons from this atrocious event in human history, it will happen again…and this time, you may be the victim.”
Well guess what, it did happen again – in Israel on the 7th October 2023.
And the world has erupted into the madness of anti-Semitism, the likes of which we haven’t seen in seven decades.
Let us never forget the Holocaust, and let us boldly stand against those who would deny it.
Let us remember those Jews, Gypsies, Soviets, and Poles who were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp and in the Holocaust.
Let us also remember those Jews who got the best revenge against their tormentors by surviving.
And Israel’s revenge against Hamas and radical Islam is its continued existence.
Holocaust survivors survived, started or rebuilt their families, and helped to create a State called Israel, to ensure that this will never happens again.
And Israel will survive the 7th of October attack because the Jewish people are G-d’s Chosen People; Israel is G-d’s Chosen Land; and Jerusalem is G-d’s Chosen City … and He will always defend His people, His land, and His Holy city.
My blessed wife and I had the privilege of meeting with a number of Jewish Holocaust survivors in Odessa (now in their late eighties and nineties) and we had the privilege of personally leading three of them to faith in Yeshua, and many more came to salvation when I made an altar call when I preached at a Shabbat service in Odessa.
I end by challenging those of you who are Born Again Believers in Yeshua and know Jewish people: Tell them about Yeshua and plant the seeds of salvation in their hearts. Who knows, maybe you, too, will have the privilege of leading a Jewish soul to Yeshua…maybe even a Holocaust survivor.
Jewish people say: “Lest we forget”!
Revelation 12:17 tells us: “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and those who have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
I implore you to never forget the Holocaust, to never be indifferent to the Holocaust, and to never be silent about the Holocaust.
I also implore you not to be silent about anti-Semitism.
You see, in the mind of radical Islam: “Today we will kill the Jews; tomorrow we will kill the Christians.”
