On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the international community memorializes the tragedy of the Holocaust committed by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.

The bureaucratic war against German Jews began in 1935 with the Nuremburg race laws. These laws defined anyone practicing the Jewish religion, or those descended from Jewish grandparents regardless of current religious affiliation, as a separate race, one working in opposition to German interests. Jews were barred from schools and certain professions, this seed of intolerance and violation of human rights ultimately lead to murder on an epic scale, the Holocaust.