VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Monday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which also marks 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.

A local rabbi who lost many family members during the Holocaust says Monday is a day of remembrance and reflection.

Rabbi Israel Zoberman is on a mission to build bridges of peace between people. To do that, he also has to educate people about the realities and atrocities of the Holocaust.

More than one million people were murdered inside the Auschwitz concentration camp. Six million people died during the Holocaust.

“There’s that great sense of relief that finally, the war was won by Allied forces, but we have to remember that it came at such a heavy cost to the Jewish people,” said Zoberman, who practices in Virginia Beach.

His father was spared from the camp, but drafted into the Red Army, a Soviet force that helped liberate the concentration camp 75 years ago on this day.

“This is my father, in the Russian uniform,” said Zoberman, showing a picture. “Look at this young Jewish boy who didn’t realize what he would witness, the terrible things he would witness.”

Zoberman was born soon after the war ended. The family moved about, living in “displaced person” camps until they settled in Israel, and then the United States.

Memories of the family members they lost is painful for Zoberman.

“We cannot let go of the pain that memory can bring to us, but we know that unless we carry the pain with us, joy will not come,” he said.

He believes it’s his duty, his mission from God, to educate people about the horrors of the Holocaust.

“We who were in the DP camps, the displaced person camps, we are now called upon to serve as witnesses,” he said.

He fears people don’t really know what happened during World War II.

“The Holocaust did not happen 4,000 years ago,” said Zoberman. “It just happened seventy-some years ago. For the sake of the present and future, we have to continue to teach and educate.”