Holocaust Remembrance Day is April 15th

This year (2007), April 15th marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah. The Holocaust, although occurring over sixty years ago, is still something that needs to be remembered. By having an international observance of the event, it is hoped that the Holocaust would never be repeated again. In 1951, the Isreali Knesset declared that the 27th day of Nisan is to be the Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day of commemoration for the Jews who perished and for those who showed resistance and heroism during the Holocaust. The day is the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The theme for this year’s commemoration is “The Dignity of Difference,” will provoke people into thinking about and recognizing the value of difference. Stephen Smith, chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust shared "Each one of us can look at what we learn from the Holocaust about the consequences of excluding others based on their difference from us."

The Holocaust The Holocaust is the term used to refer to the period from 1933 to 1945, before and during World War II, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis systematically persecuted and murdered nearly six million Jews. More than one third of the World Jewry, as well as another five million non-Jews throughout Europe, were killed during this period. The genocide, or what the Nazis dubbed “The Final Solution,” occurred mainly at six death camps located in Poland.

What Can I do? The best thing you can do is to learn more about the Holocaust and genocide. Even though many people believe that genocide like the Holocaust could never happen again, it has happened, and will continue to happen. A current example of genocide in today’s land is Darfur, in Sudan. Become educated and learn how to speak out against these useless killings.

Statistics Total number of People killed: 5,962,129 Total number of Jewish Survivors from the Holocaust: 3,546,211 Total number of Children killed: Over 1.5 million Total number of Camps: 27, with over seven being Extermination camps

Quotes Abraham Lewent: “Everyday you walk out in the morning, you see somebody is laying dead, covered with newspapers or with any kind of blanket they found. Chaim Engel: “So I knew already what happened…that he went to the gas chamber with my friend and I am here separating his clothes.” Charlene Schiff: “I drank water from puddles. Snow. Anything I could get a hold of.” Ruth Webber: “There I was, an orphan, a survivor of unspeakable pain and atrocities of the war. And I was terribly angry at everything and everybody. Because nobody even cared after I survived, that I survived.

Quotes Kurt Klein: “Uh, it was an indescribable scene. There were women scattered over the floor on scraps of straw, some, some of them quite obviously with the mark of death on their faces. Lily Mazur Margules: “And we knew the only we can survive if we will stay in the front.” Thomas Buergenthal: “Day one was a 10-hour march and tiring; we began to lag. Stragglers were shot, so two boys and I devised a way to rest as we walked: We’d run to the front of the column, then walk slowly or stop until the rear of the column reached us. Then, we’d run ahead again.” Channa Morgensztern: “The hunger in the ghetto was so great, was so bad, that people were laying on the streets and dying.”

Quotes Lilly Appelbaum: “It ended up being called the death march because the ravines and the gutters, they were all red from blood.” Isreal Cendorf: “Our courage is not shackled/ Life is marvelously beautiful…” Gerda Weissman Klein and Kurt Klein: “He held the door open for me and let me precede him and in that gesture restored me to humanity.

Dates for Yom Hashoah 2006 April 25 2007 April 15 2008 May 2 2009 April 21 2010 April 11