Six million.

That’s around the amount of people that had their lives taken away during the Holocaust.

In 2019, the state of Texas passed Senate Bill 1828, to mark January 27 as Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

And this week, high schools all over the state remember the Holocaust. 

Many on campus have family that were directly affected by the genocide. 

“My mom’s side lived in Europe, specifically my great grandfather, he lived in Hungary,” sophomore Bar Rabia said. “He was sent to a concentration camp. His siblings all died and so did his parents. And he made it out alive, and so did his now wife. She lived in Poland and was sent to a concentration camp. Her parents died and so did her brothers to her two brothers. And they made it out alive and married and had kids and moved to Israel.”

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Remembering the Holocaust

Others on campus have friends that were impacted.

“So my very best friend who I met in ninth grade humanities and we’re still friends to this day,” humanities teacher Sarah Wiseman said. “She’s Jewish and her family actually fled to Cuba during that time period. And so while they didn’t lose family members to the holocaust, you know, that’s something that’s kind of baked a fear that’s baked into their family is that, you know, it could be something that is repeated.”

The atrocities of the Holocaust that happened over eighty-five years ago still affect people today.

“And just seeing that real fear of someone who’s just as American as anyone else and worrying for the safety of their life and their children and whether or not, you know, it’s going to be safe to continue to live,” Wiseman said. “And the only home that she or her parents or her children have ever.”

For Rabia, it’s important that people to realize how it escalated. 

“So I think people should take away that, like little things lead up to like big events because like the build up to the holocaust was like very little things,” she said. “Like it was first moving all Jews to ghettos and to concentration camps and then to death camps. So it’s always like watching out for little things and making sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

This day also brings awareness to current humans right violations.

“It’s really important to remember the holocaust because it’s just a single example of genocide and mass atrocity and egregious violation of human rights,” Wiseman said. “It’s a really shocking example of the worst of what humans can do. So it’s important to remember it and to also bring awareness to current violations of human rights and mass atrocities, whether it’s at home in the united states or abroad, as a global.”