MILWAUKEE — Monday marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, as 2025 also marks 80 years since Auschwitz—the concentration camp where historians say Nazi soldiers killed more than a million people—was liberated.

"It was a concentration camp, but it was also a death camp and a mass work labor camp," said Samantha Abramson, the executive director of the Holocaust Education Resource Center, a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. "It's a really important symbol of the holocaust and the United Nations dedicated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day because it recognized the lessons of the holocaust are critical for all of us to remember."

Abramson cited data from the Milwaukee Jewish Federation which shows antisemitic incidents were up by more than 570% in Wisconsin from 2015 to 2023, and educating people about the horrific tragedy of the holocaust is one way to potentially bring that rate of hate down.

"We're really concerned about the rise in holocaust distortion, holocaust comparisons and holocaust misinformation," Abramson said.

Watch the full interview above.