Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day

shalom

In Israel

At a ceremony opening Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel would “not allow the Holocaust deniers to carry out another Holocaust against the Jewish people.”

In Geneva

At a United Nations conference against racism Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad commenced his speech and delegates from 23 European nations rose and filed out of the hall making a point of passing his podium on their way out. Nine countries, including the United States and Israel, boycotted the conference.

According to the written text, Ahmadinejad was to talk about the “ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust” when he referred to the post-Second World War creation of Israel on the “pretext of Jewish suffering.” Instead he spoke more vaguely of the “abuse of the Holocaust.”

The Facts

The Nazis wiped out a third of world Jewry during World War II. It has been over 60 years since the Holocaust. An estimated 250,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel, roughly half of those still alive worldwide.

To survivors, the Holocaust remains real and ever-present, but for some others, sixty years makes the Holocaust seem part of ancient history. Year-round we try to teach and inform others about the horrors of the Holocaust. We confront the questions of what happened? How did it happen? How could it happen? Could it happen again? We attempt to fight against ignorance with education and against disbelief with proof.

Commemoration

On April 12, 1951, the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) proclaimed Yom Hashoah U’Mered HaGetaot (Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day) to be the 27th of Nissan. The name later became known as Yom Hashoah Ve Hagevurah (Devastation and Heroism Day) and even later simplified to Yom Hashoah.

Yom Hashoah is today April 21, 2009.

There are various beliefs about what is and is not appropriate on this day – and many of them are conflicting. In general, Yom Hashoah has been observed with candlelighting, speakers, poems, prayers, and singing. Often, six candles are lighted to represent the six million. Holocaust survivors speak about their experiences or share in the readings. Some ceremonies have people read from the Book of Names for certain lengths of time in an effort to remember those that died and to give an understanding of the huge number of victims. Sometimes these ceremonies are held in a cemetery or near a Holocaust memorial. Source

Registry of Holocaust Survivors

In 1981, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors established a national registry to document the lives of survivors who came to the United States after World War II. In April 1993 the Registry was transferred to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Although most of the survivors who have registered live in North America, the Museum includes the names of survivors from all backgrounds living all over the world. The Registry now includes over 196,000 records related to survivors and their families.

The Museum honors as survivors any persons, Jewish or non-Jewish, who were displaced, persecuted, or discriminated against due to the racial, religious, ethnic, social, and political policies of the Nazis and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945. In addition to former inmates of concentration camps, ghettos, and prisons, this definition includes, among others, people who were refugees or were in hiding.

I’m sorry to say that I only discovered that this was Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day. I have visited sites and viewed and read their contents and I have wept. Man’s inhumanity towards mankind must stop. Tonight I will light candles and remember those who were lost and pray for world peace.

See also: The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler