Today marks the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 77th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camps.

Today we remember not only the millions of innocent souls who perished in the evil industrial-scale genocide perpetrated by the Nazi regime, but the very process that led to such evil. Hate, when left unchecked and unchallenged in any society, leads to unspeakable evils.

The Holocaust happened in a society that didn’t stand up for its Jews. It required the public’s complicity and apathy to the acts of hate practiced upon the most vulnerable amongst them.

The Holocaust didn’t start with concentration camps and gas chambers, but with small acts of discrimination. Small hateful gestures, comments, and name calling. Left unchallenged, these small acts snowballed and evolved into more aggressive forms of hate and discrimination.

It’s the same dehumanization process at the center of virtually every tragedy in human history. And if we are to forget our history, we are doomed to perpetually repeat it.