This past Monday, January 27, marked a somber anniversary as the world commemorated the closing of one of its darkest chapters.

Monday was the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the notorious concentration camp, where more than one million Jews and many others were systematically tortured and murdered by the Nazi regime. On Monday, Congress voted to authorize $10 million in funding for educational programming about the Holocaust and programming meant to discourage anti-Semitism and bigotry.

Many lives remain shattered by the horrors inflicted three quarters of a century ago. But as fewer Holocaust survivors remain with us, and fewer lives are directly affected by the Nazi horrors, there is a real danger that as the painful memories of the past fade, so will the lessons of past horrors.

We’ve seen a frightening rise in violence against Jews and other forms of anti-Semitism in recent years, some it it close to home. Swastikas have been scrawled around the county, and frightened parents are asking law enforcement for more visible security at synagogues and schools. Last month a man rushed into a rabbi’s home in Monsey, during a Hanukkah celebration, hacking at people with a machete. Five people were wounded in the attack.

Clearly, we do need our future generations to be aware of the evils of hatred and bigotry of all types. Those who risked life and limb to liberate those imprisoned in the concentration camps would have expected nothing less of us. But it is not for their sake, rather for the sake of our children and grandchildren that we must stand together to finally rise up against hatred.

We can never allow ourselves to forget.