Holocaust Remembrance Day is meant to remember and honor the six million Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. On Sept. 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland, raiding Jewish homes and forcing them to wear yellow stars and armbands. In 1933, the first concentration camp was established in Dachau, Germany. By the end of the war in 1945, 44,000 camps and ghettos had been established with the goal of segregating and exterminating the Jewish people, as well as other minorities.

The Holocaust Remembrance Day exists to make sure the memories of children who could not have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, adults who could not get married and innocents who couldn’t live out their stories are not lost. To remember those lives that were taken, community members can light a candle, visit a remembrance center and educate themselves on the significance of this day.