On January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, where more than 1.1 million people – primarily Jews – were murdered during the Holocaust by the Nazis, in an enormous site specially constructed for one purpose: mass killing.

Eighty years later, the United Nations General Assembly marked the day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, meant to remind the world about the dangers of anti-Jewish hate.

While some individuals sought to twist the day in order to push a fanatical anti-Israel agenda, such as Yuen Pau Woo, a radical senator who used it to claim “Israel is the perpetrator” of a modern-day Holocaust, it was nevertheless widely commemorated by elected officials.

Additionally, news media outlets across the country also marked the day, with reports from Vancouver to Halifax. However, there was one notable exception: The Globe and Mail, often considered Canada’s newspaper of record.

On neither January 27 nor the following day did the newspaper acknowledge International Holocaust Remembrance Day, instead ignoring it completely.

Given the enormity of the Holocaust, and the large number of Holocaust survivors (though dwindling) who live in Canada, it was a particularly notable omission on the part of the newspaper.

Marking the day is not an academic exercise; it is a critical step in holding the violent tendencies of anti-Jewish hate at bay by educating the public at large.

This education is critically important during a time, as it has been over the last two years since the Palestinian massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that such hate has seen a dramatic rise in the Western world.

While it would seem self-evident that, during a time of increasing antisemitism, Holocaust education would be prioritized, there is evidence that the exact opposite is taking place. A recent report from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) found that the number of British schools which commemorated the Holocaust on January 27 fell precipitously over the last two years.

In 2023, some 2,000 secondary schools in the UK marked the day. In 2024, that number fell to 1,200, and in 2025, it fell to only 854, only about 20 percent of all such schools. Observers noted that it was almost certainly due to a fear from teachers of the backlash from anti-Israel extremists, who would attempt to hijack the Holocaust to promote hateful libels against the Jewish State.

Whether The Globe and Mail’s failure to mark the genocidal murder of six million Jews – and millions of other ‘undesirables’ at the hands of the Nazis – was out of fear from anti-Israel extremists, or simply due to ignorance, is an answer that only the newspaper can answer. But they do owe an answer, not just to Holocaust survivors or even just the Jewish community at large. The Globe and Mail owes an explanation for why it chose to ignore the one day marking a genocidal campaign, which was driven by a hateful and murderous ideology that continues to be present – and tolerated – in much of Canada.