2 Montreal Landmarks Are Lighting Up Yellow For Holocaust Remembrance Day

Two Montreal landmarks, the Olympic Tower and the Samuel de Champlain Bridge, are lighting up yellow for Holocaust Remembrance Day on the evening of January 27, 2022.

In total, 34 iconic façade, structures and sites in six provinces will illuminate in commemoration of the millions of people, including six million Jews, who were systematically murdered under the Nazi regime.

Niagara Falls, the CN Tower and Vancouver's BC Place are among the other Canadian landmarks that will glow yellow Thursday night as part of a campaign called #WeRemember, according to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

January 27, 2022, is the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly declared the date the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

The UN calls on member states to promote education on the Holocaust and other genocides. It says such education is especially important amid what it calls a "global rise of antisemitism and hate speech."

"It is our shared responsibility to protect the truth, and to keep alive the memory of all those who suffered under the Nazi regime; to support research and documentation that can confront the fantasies of fanatics with the reality of history; and to study and teach the Holocaust, so that education may prevent anti-Semitism and all forms of racism," UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement.

Locally, the Montreal Holocaust Museum is hosting an online screening of the film The Legendary Simone Veil, which, according to the museum's website, "documents the remarkable life and legacy of Holocaust survivor and political pioneer Simone Veil."

The screening begins at 7 p.m. on Vimeo with an introduction by Holocaust survivor Elie Dawang.

The Samuel de Champlain Bridge illumination will end at 1 a.m.