81 Years Later: Remembering the Holocaust and Why It Still Matters for Our Community Today
01/27/2026
Today marks eighty-one years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
For many in our community, the history is familiar: on January 27, 1945, soldiers from the Soviet Union’s 60th Army reached Auschwitz and found some 7,000 Survivors and evidence of the 1.1 million individuals killed there. The SS guards, having recently abandoned the camp to force march the Survivors who could still work (or simply still walk), hastily attempted to destroy evidence of the atrocities committed at the camp, and yet the horror was still obvious to the liberating soldiers.
Even with this familiarity, the liberation has not lost its urgency or its moral weight. As we reflect more than eight decades later, the connections between that history and the world we are living in today are impossible to ignore.
Antisemitism Then and Now
In just the last month, Jews have faced terror attacks in Mississippi, public intimidation in New York, and the exclusion of Jewish voices from nominally inclusive civic events in San Diego.
Antisemitism has continued to plague the world since the closing days of WWII, through the conclusion of the Nuremberg trials, past the capture of Adolf Eichmann, and into every decade since.
Today, antisemitism is not only escalating but is embedding itself into the very foundations of modern institutions, digital spaces, and public discourse on a scale many of us have never experienced before.
Resistance, Resilience, and Jewish Joy
And yet, despite the rising hostility, and in some cases because of it, Jewish life in San Diego is not retreating.
Our community is organizing, educating, celebrating, and standing firm together.
Through the Finest Community Coalition, Federation is bringing Jewish organizations across San Diego together to confront antisemitism directly and collectively, while our Standing Up to Antisemitism Toolkit is equipping the Jewish community with the means to tackle antisemitic incidents, and Jewish students are being empowered to share their identity and culture through Student-to-Student.
Federation is also launching the Legacy of Light Goldberg Institute for Holocaust Education, an ambitious initiative designed to combat misinformation and deliver high-quality, Survivor-centered education to students through innovative tools like Spark Interactive.
Through programs such as the Academy of Critical Thinkers and the SHOAH Collaborative, Federation is equipping educators with the tools they need to teach Holocaust history with depth and accuracy and to push back against the antisemitism that thrives in the online spaces young people frequent every day.
Additionally, RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust, an exhibit in the La Jolla Riford Library, brings experiences from Shoah to life with artifacts and Survivor testimonies.
Learn more about how Federation is transforming Holocaust education across San Diego here.
Our community is also celebrating, joining together in vibrant joy and to resist the antisemitic calls for Jews to be small, quiet, and invisible. At FED360, our community will gather to celebrate Jewish exuberance, pride, and unity, affirming that joy itself is a form of resistance.
Centering and Supporting Holocaust Survivors
As we mark this solemn anniversary, Holocaust Survivors must remain at the heart of our remembrance.
Here in San Diego, fewer than 350 Survivors are still with us, a number that continues to shrink every year. All are now in their late 80s and 90s, and many rely on critical support services, particularly those who arrived after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Our Survivors are supported through community partnerships including:
Survivors need help, and our community’s support of these efforts ensures that they are able to live in dignity.
Eighty-one years after Auschwitz was liberated; our community remembers the Holocaust, supports our Survivors, and carries forward lessons of the Shoah through action. And with the strength and unity of our community, we are actively resisting the rising specter of antisemitism.
The lessons of the Holocaust demand nothing less.
