Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day 2014

Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day 2014

  • icon_zoom.png
    Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day
     
     

    Jews "On the Edge" - 1944: Between Annihilation and Liberation

    27 Apr 2014

    Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah in Hebrew) is a national day of commemoration in Israel, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized.
    Yom Hashoah is a solemn day, beginning at sunset on the 27th of the month of Nisan (April 27, 2014) and ending the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom. Places of entertainment are closed and memorial ceremonies are held throughout the country.

    The central ceremonies, in the evening and the following morning, are held at Yad Vashem and are broadcast on television. Marking the start of the day - in the presence of the President of the State of Israel and the Prime Minister, dignitaries, survivors, children of survivors and their families, gather together with the general public to take part in the memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem in which six torches, representing the six million murdered Jews, are lit. 

    The following morning, the ceremony at Yad Vashem begins with the sounding of a siren for two minutes throughout the entire country. For the duration of the sounding, work is halted, people walking in the streets stop, cars pull off to the side of the road and everybody stands at silent attention in reverence to the victims of the Holocaust. Afterward, the focus of the ceremony at Yad Vashem is the laying of wreaths at the foot of the six torches, by dignitaries and the representatives of survivor groups and institutions. Other sites of remembrance in Israel, such as the Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, also host memorial ceremonies, as do schools, military bases, municipalities and places of work. 


    The central theme for Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2014 is Jews "On the Edge" - 1944: Between Annihilation and Liberation, reflecting the situation of the Jews in 1944 - exactly 70 years ago. The expression "on the edge" is taken from Nathan Alterman's poem Joy of the Poor, which so aptly expresses the feeling which prevailed that year among the Jews of Europe. While cities from east to west, such as Vilna and Minsk, Warsaw and Riga, Belgrade and Sofia, Paris and Rome, were being liberated from the yoke of Nazi Germany, the Jews of Hungary were sent to Auschwitz, the Lodz and Kovno ghettos were liquidated, the last of their former inmates were deported and murdered, and death marches were initiated from the liberated territories to the heart of what remained of the "Third Reich".

    In March 1944, the Germans invaded Hungary and immediately commenced preparations for the swiftest and most organized deportation any Jewish community had ever witnessed: From the middle of May, over 430,000 Jews from Hungary were sent almost exclusively to Auschwitz, where the vast majority was murdered in the space of two months.

    In June, the "Auschwitz Protocols" were disseminated around the world. This detailed account, written by Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, two young Jews who managed to escape from the infamous concentration and death camp, exposed for the first time the central role of the camp in the extermination system.

    In October, an uprising in Auschwitz was staged by the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners tasked with the unspeakable job of handling the bodies of the murdered victims. They blew up one of the gas chambers with the help of explosives smuggled in to them by a group of young Jewish women. 

    These events are at the heart of the tension between annihilation and liberation, a tension that was literally a question of life and death for the Jews at that time, who were living on the very edge. 


    "Unto Every Person There is a Name"

    Six million Jews, among them 1.5 million children, were murdered in the Shoah while the world remained silent. The worldwide Holocaust memorial project "Unto Every Person There is a Name" is a unique project designed to perpetuate their memory as individuals and restore their identity and dignity, through the public recitation of their names on Yom Hashoah - Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. By personalizing the individual tragedies of the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, this project counters persistent efforts by enemies of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to deny the reality of the Holocaust and cast it as history’s seminal hoax.


    "Everyone has a name" - Poem by Zelda
    [translated from Hebrew]

    Everyone has a name
    given to him by God
    and given to him by his parents.
    Everyone has a name
    given to him by his stature
    and the way he smiles.
    and given to him by his clothing
    Everyone has a name
    given to him by the mountains
    and given to him by the walls.
    Everyone has a name
    given to him by the stars
    and given to him by his neighbors.
    Everyone has a name
    given to him by his sins
    and given to him by his longing.
    Everyone has a name
    given to him by his enemies
    and given to him by his love.
    Everyone has a name 
    given to him by his holidays
    and given to him by his work.
    Everyone has a name
    given to him by the seasons
    and given to him by his blindness.
    Everyone has a name
    given to him by the sea and
    given to him
    by his death.


    "Unto Every Person There is a Name" is conducted around the world in hundreds of Jewish communities through the efforts of four major Jewish organizations: B'nai B'rith International, Nativ, the World Jewish Congress and the World Zionist Organization. The project is coordinated by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, in consultation with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and enjoys the official auspices of the President of the State of Israel Shimon Peres. In Israel, "Unto Every Person There is a Name" has become an integral part of the official Yom Hashoah commemoration ceremonies, with the central events held at the Knesset and at Yad Vashem with the participation of elected officials, as well as events throughout the country.

    Lists of names