Thousands of people light candles to represent each Austrian killed under Nazi tyranny, including 65,000 Jewish people, during a silent candle-lit vigil on Vienna's Heldenplatz on March 12, 2008.Reuters
Thursday marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which honors the 11 million people killed during the 20th- century Nazi genocide. Holocaust Day, or in Hebrew "Yom HaShoah," runs from Wednesday night to Thursday night in many countries. This year's observance comes about three months after the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz.
About 6 million Jewish people died during the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler's rule from 1933 to 1945, according to the History Channel. He led the Nazis in Aryanization, first eliminating Germany's Jewish residents from the workforce and then killing them en masse.
Here are 10 other facts about the Holocaust:
More than 1 million people were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz, one of the Nazis' death camps. Others included Chelmno, Terblinka, Sobibor and Majdanek.
The name "Holocaust" comes from the Greek word "holokauston," which means "burnt offering."
A third of the world's Jewish population died in the Holocaust.
The full name of the Nazi Party is Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. In English, it means National Socialist German Workers Party.
Nazi soldiers forced Jewish people to live in ghettos, the largest of which was in Warsaw, Poland. On April 19, 1943, its residents rebelled, and about 13,000 of them died in the conflict. Holocaust Day is intended to match up with the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
Every year at 10 a.m. on Holocaust Day, Israel plays sirens across the nation. Everyone stops -- even people driving -- and reflects on the Holocaust for two minutes, according to Haaretz.
The Nazis also targeted homosexuals, people with disabilities, political dissidents and gypsies.
Germany surrendered to the Allies in France on May 8, 1945 -- sometimes called Victory in Europe Day.
Anne Frank's famous diary was actually published by her father, Otto Frank, who survived the Holocaust.
