Holocaust Memorial Day is not like any other acts of remembrance. It is a day where we remember the most incomprehensible act of human cruelty, which still casts a shadow on our times. This year is particularly poignant since it marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

Approximately 5,962,129 people were killed; an estimated 63 per cent of the Jewish population at the time. In Poland alone, an estimated 91 per cent of the Jewish community was wiped out. Such figures often serve as fodder for those who seek to deny this genocide.

Nonetheless, the historical record points to the accuracy of these damning figures. Wilhelm Hoettl, an Austrian member of the National-Socialist Party and a high-ranking SS official, testified under oath at both Nuremberg and in the trial of Adolf Eichmann – the architect of the Shoah – that the same Eichmann had admitted to the extermination of approximately six million Jews: four million in extermination camps and two million from other causes.

These figures are also supported by other sources such as the comparison of pre-war and post-war census data, as well as the records of deportations and extermination by the German authorities.

Yad Vashem – the official memorial to the Shoah located on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem – is trying to document each victim of this human tragedy. So far, they have identified 4.8 million persons who were exterminated. Nonetheless, their work is far from over.

Examining such statistics only serves to confirm the scale of the tragedy. In a service of remembrance in Jerusalem, the speech which stood out the most was that of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. It set the right tone:

“The scale of the evil was so great, the impact so profound, that it threatens to obscure the countless individual human stories of tragedy, loss and suffering of which it was comprised. That is why places like this, and events like this, are so vitally important.”

The tragedy of the holocaust is the tragedy of our times…

He continues to argue that the story of each victim is also part of the story of our humanity. Through such stories, we can and must learn: “For that an evil cannot be described does not mean that it cannot be defeated. That it cannot be fully understood does not mean that it cannot be overcome.”

These words are not rhetorical flourishes. Genocide still happens. We often forget that, within our lifetimes, we’ve witnessed similar tragedies in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina and other parts of the globe. Policymakers are also reluctant to recognise genocide when it happens – such as the recent genocide of Christians by Daesh in the Middle East.

The Prince of Wales rightly recognises that hatred and intolerance are still part of our lives, and they often manifest themselves in public life. The remembrance of the Shoah reminds us of how prone to such vile acts our humanity can be:

“All too often, language is used which turns disagreement into dehumanisation. Words are used as badges of shame to mark others as enemies, to brand those who are different as somehow deviant. All too often, virtue seems to be sought through verbal violence. All too often, real violence ensues, and acts of unspeakable cruelty are still perpetrated around the world against people for reasons of their religion, their race or their beliefs.”

We need not look far to realise that every society faces such problems and must reject such impulses.

In his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 2006, Pope Benedict XVI delivered another beautiful reflection. He reminds us that “the past is never simply the past” and that every story emerging from these camps confronts us with a part of our humanity.

These stories and inscriptions affect us: “They jar our memory, they touch our hearts. They have no desire to instil hatred in us: instead, they show us the terrifying effect of hatred. Their desire is to help our reason to see evil as evil and to reject it; their desire is to enkindle in us the courage to do good and to resist evil.”

In their reflections, both leaders touch upon a fundamental question which touches each and every society, that is, how do we view the human person?

The tragedy of the holocaust is the tragedy of our times for, even in our day and age, we see the human person subjected to the whim of ideologies and fads. The dignity of the human person remains expandable.

We deny persons their dignity in the name of a false conception of choice and liberty. We still grapple with issues of anti-Semitism within our political structures. Anti-Catholicism remains the last acceptable prejudice in many countries. We mock at the suggestion that the collective suffering could be classified as genocide. For the sake of political expediency, we embark on reforms which strengthen ‘choice’ but weaken dignity. In the name of freedom of expression, we mock, deny and denigrate others.

Sure enough, none of these will lead to evil on the scale of the Shoah. However, they slowly begin to shape the mindset which made the Shoah possible. As the Prince of Wales rightly concluded: “We must never forget that every human being is be-tselem Elokim, ‘in the image of God,’ and even a single human life is ke-olam malei, ‘like an entire universe’.”

André Debattista is an independent researcher in politics and international relations.