Remembering Auschwitz and more than 400 Purple Triangles

International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 provides Treasure Valley residents a time to reflect on victims of Nazi persecution.

Submitted by: Jonathan Davis

On Jan. 27, 2024, many around the world commemorated the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, part of the infamous Auschwitz Nazi concentration complex.

For many, the observance of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau recalls atrocities toward targeted groups. In its nearly five years of operation, Auschwitz expanded to include a concentration camp, a forced-labor camp and an extermination camp, as well as over 40 subcamps. Four gas chambers claimed thousands of lives.

On Saturday, Jan. 27, 1945, the Soviet Union’s Red Army liberated some 7,000 prisoners from the death complex. Some 400 Jehovah’s Witnesses of various nationalities, including Polish and German, were among those victimized at the infamous camp. A purple-triangle patch stitched near the Page 1 prisoner number on the left side of uniforms identified the Witnesses who were imprisoned, not for their national or ethnic identity, but for their religious beliefs.

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