Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, the late Elie Wiesel, once said of that horrific state-sponsored genocide that, "to forget the victims means to kill them a second time."

Wiesel's words underscore the gravity of the duty we all have as humankind to never forget the horrors of the Holocaust. We take for granted that for most people, the names "Auschwitz" or "Treblinka" evoke those terrible memorials and attest to the brutal methods used by the Nazis to attempt to exterminate the Jewish people during World War II. In Auschwitz alone, Nazis ended the lives of more than one million people, contributing to the astounding 6 million Jewish men, women, and children who were murdered. It is difficult to comprehend the scale of such loss, as well as the capability of humankind to inflict such suffering.

Lately, I was talking to some young university students, asking them their views on the Holocaust, and I was alarmed that most of them could not even explain the significance of Auschwitz.

To all of us, that fading memory is a clear sign that it is vital to educate our younger generations on the actions of the Nazi regime. As the years pass, fewer and fewer survivors are with us to tell their stories, and as long as people forget the past, the threat of genocide remains, as, unfortunately, we are still witnessing in this day and age.

The fading understanding of the significance of the Holocaust in the younger generation is a warning sign for the world's future. Listening to the stories of Holocaust survivors creates awareness and solidifies the commitment to stop this terror from ever happening again.

For seven decades, "never forget" has been a rallying cry of the Holocaust remembrance movement. As we get farther away from the actual events, year after year, it becomes less forefront of what people are talking about or thinking about or discussing or learning. The issue is not that people deny the Holocaust; the issue is just that it's receding from memory.

Worldwide, the estimated number of living Holocaust survivors has fallen to less than 400,000, many of them in their 90s. Holocaust remembrance advocates and educators, who agree that no book, film or traditional exhibition can compare to the voice of a survivor, dread the day when none are left to tell their stories.

On the eve of the 81st anniversary of the Soviet Union's liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland, academics and Jewish groups worry that the world's collective memory is fading even as anti-Semitic attacks grow across the United States and Europe. This rise in anti-Semitism feels eerily like 1930s Europe as fascism swept the continent.

It's the same type of thing, and it's the same stuff being said about Jews today as was said about Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s, and it's all due to a lack of memory of the horrors of World War II and the spread of hate speech online.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau alone, more than a million people are estimated to have been murdered. The vast majority were Jews transported from across Europe to be killed in its gas chambers. Tens of thousands of others, including Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and those belonging to the Roma group, were also killed at the site to the west of the city of Krakow.

How will future generations that didn't experience the Holocaust remember it? Once the survivors of the Holocaust pass on, who will tell their stories?

Educating new generations about the Holocaust is more important than ever. Safeguarding the historical record, remembering the victims and challenging the distortion of history often expressed in contemporary anti-semitism are some of the challenges ahead.

The Shoah stands out as one of the defining moments of history that has shaped the conscience of mankind. It is unique in its roots, implementation and envisioned totality. It is our duty to remember the past to remain vigilant for the future. Teaching remembrance of the Holocaust is a crucial safeguard against history and serious human rights violations repeating themselves.

Remembrance also lies at the roots of the Council of Europe.

In the case of Garaudy v. France, the applicant, an author of a book entitled 'The Founding Myths of Modern Israel,' was convicted of disputing the existence of crimes against humanity, defamation of the Jewish community and incitement to racial hatred. He argued that his right to freedom of expression had been infringed. The Court declared his application inadmissible. It was considered that the content of his remarks had amounted to Holocaust denial and pointed out that denying crimes against humanity was one of the most serious forms of racial defamation of Jews and incitement to hatred of them.

Yet denial has many facets and also includes minimisation, trivialisation or distortion of the Holocaust.

Europeans are ignoring the evidence of rising anti-semitic hate speech, violence and Holocaust denial at their peril. The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.

The teaching of the Holocaust should be made an integral part of the curriculum at the secondary level, with teachers given specific training. Educational programmes should emphasise the link between current manifestations of hatred and intolerance and the Holocaust.

Anti-semitism is a threat to our European continent built on freedom and the rule of law. It is only by facing up to the past that we can look with hope and confidence to the future.

Dr Mark Said is a lawyer