As the Church joins the international community in marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is warning that humanity is at risk of losing one of its most painful—but essential—sources of moral wisdom.
According to Vatican News, Piotr Cywiński reflected on the state of the modern world during an interview released on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He described a global climate marked by instability and moral uncertainty, stressing the urgent need to preserve historical memory.
“Our post-war world is falling apart,” Cywiński said, adding that “profound changes are affecting not only culture and spirituality, but also politics and international law.” He warned that humanity is entering a period when remembrance is not optional, but essential. “I believe we are living in times when we need memory far, far more than we ever imagined we would,” he said.
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Cywiński emphasized that Holocaust survivors have already entrusted the world with what they could. According to Vatican News, he noted that survivors “passed on what they were able to pass on, and what they believed we would be capable of understanding—experiences that come from a completely different world, the one they encountered in the camp.”
As the generation of survivors continues to pass away, Cywiński urged societies to take responsibility for carrying their testimony forward. “I think today’s world—and even more so the world of tomorrow—will need a community capable of drawing consequences for the future from human experience,” he said, underscoring the moral obligation to remember.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, established by the United Nations in 2005 and observed annually on January 27, honors the millions of Jewish victims murdered by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. For Catholics, the day also serves as a call to reject antisemitism and to defend the dignity of every human life, ensuring that the lessons written in history’s darkest chapter are never forgotten.
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