On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, everyone around the world – individuals, leaders, communities – gather to reinforce their commitment to honor the memory of the victims of the darkest hour of human history.

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But while the world bows its head to commemorate the Holocaust, it often remembers its victims as a unified collective. The very day we commemorate the victims, Jan. 27, marks the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the ultimate symbol of the Nazi terror. But not all Holocaust victims were sent to concentration camps. Far from it. Time has come to tell the all-encompassing story of the Holocaust.

Behind the monstrous number of "six million victims" stand six million individual life stories. To commemorate the Holocaust means remembering each and every one of those individually. We are committed to telling as many stories as possible, but unfortunately, too many of them remain unknown.

How many life stories will never be known after the massacre in Ukraine's Babi Yar ravine? Within two days, the Nazis brutally murdered 33,771 Jewish men, women, and children. By the end of the war, they murdered 100,000 people, including Ukrainians and gypsies.

The Babi Yar massacre destroyed the Jewish community in Kyiv. The Jews of Riga, Minsk, and Vilnius encountered the same tragic faith – murdered in ravines. Some 1,5 million Jews lost their lives that way.

Only the central chapter of the Nazi's "final solution" is still largely unknown. As I know from bitter experience, the Soviet regime after World War II did everything possible to erase Jewish identity and the memory of the Holocaust from collective memory.

The Soviet worldview rejected all national, ethnic, and religious affiliation. And so, they described the Babi Yar massacre as a crime against the Soviet people and literally buried the truth by building highways, apartment buildings, and even a stadium on top of Europe's largest mass grave. They even tried to turn the area into a landfill.

Even though, as an independent country, Ukraine is trying to right this injustice, Babi Yar continues to evade the historical narrative. A recent survey conducted by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya found that only a third of Israelis aged 18-29 know that the massacre took place during the Holocaust; 75% of respondents in Israel said they felt like the memory of the Holocaust was fading away.

The time has come to reinstate the balance. We are running out of time, as commemorating the Holocaust gets more and more challenging as the number of Holocaust survivors who witnessed the incomparable evil decreases each year.

Fortunately, significant efforts are being invested in ensuring that the victims of Babi Yar and other ravines in Eastern Europe make it into the history books.

A world-class museum is being set up at the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, whose Supervisory Board I head. Virtual history and education projects are already underway. New names of victims have been revealed, and details of their lives restored. Previously unknown stories were revealed of Ukrainians who helped save the lives of their Jewish neighbors.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an opportunity to weigh how we remember humanity's inconceivable deterioration to evil. All of us around the world pledge "never again," and we mean it.

However, if we truly want to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, we must first know our history. It begins with the understanding that the Holocaust did not begin and end in Auschwitz. There are countless other Holocaust stories to tell. Now is the time to preserve and retell all of them.

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The first time I met Sheldon Adelson, almost 30 years ago, he asked me, "How can I help Soviet Jews behind the Iron Curtain?" I met him and his wife Miri dozens of times since then, and it seemed to me that every moment of his life, Sheldon was busy thinking, "How can I help the Jewish people and Israel?"

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Sheldon told stories about his father, a poor man who dreamed of coming to Israel but did not get the chance to do so. His father identified with the struggles of other Jews but did not have the means to help them.

As a young boy, Sheldon used to sell newspapers, and he always used to say proudly that he sold the newspaper that announced the establishment of the State of Israel.

It seemed that Sheldon believed that his business success came about so that he can help his people and his country, an opportunity that his family did not have.

His approach to philanthropy was no different than his approach to business. He and Miri worked as a dedicated and determined duo, testing the existing ways to help the Jewish people and developing new and long-term strategies. And when they were sure that a certain path was the right way to help, their generosity knew no bounds.

Sheldon was the one who came up with the idea for the Birthright Israel program. He realized that it would strengthen the Jewish people at a time of weakness. He knew there was a line of people who wanted to participate, and his decision was clear. From now on – no more lines. The project is available to every Jew in the world. And if that meant that donating millions of his own money every year, then so be it. The project has become one of the most global and meaningful enterprises in the world.

During the Second Intifada, I told then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the most critical battle is that for the future of young Jews who are on American university campuses and that we needed to send emissaries there. But because of financial constraints, the Jewish Agency only had a few representatives on the land of liberty. After thorough research, Sheldon and Miri understood what tremendous impact these representatives could make, and the situation changed. Today we have emissaries on hundreds of American campuses. The entire emissary program has been upgraded thanks to the Adelson family.

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I want to point out that despite his tremendous contributions and personal interest, Sheldon never tried to pressure the projects politically. Helping the Jewish people should happen outside of political disagreements. Every Jew can participate in the project, regardless of his or her political affiliation.

Sheldon was one of history's most generous philanthropists who strengthened the Jewish people and the State of Israel, thus fulfilling his father's dream.

May his memory be for a blessing.

Natan Sharansky is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and former chairman of the Jewish Agency.

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After a year of cursed elections, we are moving toward a unity government, and that is comforting. The people's message in the election as clear -- they want unity. And we aren't the only ones. The entire world must realize that we can only handle this if we are together. It is a universal message to humanity. It starts with the strength that comes from the family and the home -- my home is my castle. This has a very deep meaning because if we want to solve the problems of the world, everything begins at the root, which is the home. We are all returning home to wage a world war. I hope that we all make it through safely, happy and in good health.

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I hope that we learn from a situation the like of which we've never seen. We need to think about the world as a while and search for ways of joining forces. There is a need for a unity government, and everything starts with the nuclear family.

This year, we are celebrating Passover with the nuclear family. That carries great symbolism. The Israeli people can contribute to the rest of the world, and it's no coincidence that we are handling the situation better than the other nations of the free world. We have experience with special situations, and we have many years of wisdom, which means we have much to give. For the future of our country, the Jewish people, and our contribution to humanity, we must unite. We have thousands of years of experience of each of us sitting at home but nevertheless feeling part of the same people. We had a Jewish "internet" long before the world had one. We must never forget these ties. They can give us strength, even when we are alone at home.

Israel is a center of Jewish life, and a much safer, better-prepared society to handle world challenges. Now we need to think about how Israel can help the New York Jewish community, which is in a tough situation. In dangerous times, there is no place safer than Israel. In the past, when the plague struck Europe, millions died -- almost a third of Europe's population.

There were Jewish communities that were destroyed because people blamed them for the plague. The world has moved on, but even today there are some who blame the Jews for the current plague, and even say they are making money off it. This is a reminder to us all that prejudice does not die out. We need to be aware of it, and we must not stop our battle against anti-Semitism, whether it is aimed at Israel or at the Jews of the world.

As a former prisoner of Zion, I remember celebrating seder in solitary confinement. There were three slices of bread, three glasses of water, and a little salt. I decided that the warm water was wine, the dry bread was matza, and the salt was the bitter herbs. I tried to remember every sentence in the Haggada, and what I couldn't, I made up. "Next year in Jerusalem" was a very powerful sentence for me. I felt that I was with the rest of the Jewish people, on the right path. Then, Passover was a good opportunity to know just how much we weren't giving in and were continuing our battle.

I believe we will come out of this crisis stronger because we handled it correctly. The government made the right decisions before other countries did. It's important that we come out of this crisis more united, with a unity government.

A happy, healthy Passover to everyone, with much confidence in our role and our path. 

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