International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked on January 27. The purpose of marking this day is to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, to think about the threat of anti-Semitism and to reaffirm the importance of tolerance.

On January 27, 2021, the Public Defender of Georgia, the Tolerance Center of the Public Defender, the Council of Europe Office in Georgia and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organized an online meeting to discuss historical path of the Holocaust and its consequences, to recall the interesting and important facts about the coexistence of the Jewish people and to talk about the possibility of condemning each expression of anti-Semitism.

Welcome speeches were delivered at the event by Nino Lomjaria, Public Defender of Georgia, Natalia Voutova, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia, Ran Gidor, Ambassador of Israel to Georgia, and Adam Schmidt, Director of the Democracy, Rights and Governance Office, USAID/Georgia.

Marina Solomonishvili, Head of the Lea Foundation, Sophio Zviadadze, Professor and Historian of Ilia State University, and Ketevan Kakitelashvili, Associate Professor of TSU Department of Humanities, Institute of Cultural Studies, delivered reports at the online event. Beka Mindiashvili, Head of the Tolerance Center of the Public Defender, moderated the event.

A discussion was held at the end of the meeting, during which the participants talked about the importance of tolerance, the measures needed to eliminate anti-Semitic attitudes and the benefits of coexistence of different people in a diverse world.

The event was also attended by representatives of academia, local and international organizations, students and other stakeholders.

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi government and its allies committed genocide against Jews, Roma, Soviet captives, black Germans, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other minorities throughout Europe. According to officiall international historiography, the number of Jews killed as a result of the genocide exceeds 6 million.

The United Nations declared January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005 and called on the States to raise awareness of the Holocaust atrocities.