Today on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember the victims of the Holocaust through objects such as survivor Greta Perlman’s charm bracelet, created during her internment in the camp-ghetto of Theresienstadt from 1941 to 1944. Every charm tells a story, presenting aspects of her life and her struggle for survival.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is the day the international community remembers the horrific atrocities, the world’s indifference, and the victims of the Holocaust. Ideally, anyway, but that’s a conversation for another time.
This is not that. This is the day Jews around the world mourn our 6,000,000+ dead. Two-thirds of European Jews. One-third of the world’s Jewish population.
Our population still has not recovered.
Those are big numbers. So let me bring them home to smaller ones. My grandmother (z”l) was born into a family of eight (she made the ninth). My grandmother and four others survived the Shoah. Four perished. Two in KZ Ravensbrück. Two more at the hands of the SS Politzei. May their memories be for a blessing.
The survivors? Two hidden children. A young seamstress that survived brutal work camps. A boy told to ride his bike as far away as he could that found a way onto a kindertransport. A young woman who’d been on a teen trip to the British Mandate who heeded her parents warnings not to go back home. Two of them are still alive today, and the rest lived to ripe old age and saw their lineages pass down to children, grandchildren, and, in my grandmother’s case, a great-grandchild.
They were the lucky ones, but what they survived left permanent marks. They cannot forget the Shoah and neither shall I.
There are only two of them left, and their biggest fear is that the Shoah and its tragedies and lessons will be forgotten.
Remember them. Remember their family. Remember the Shoah.
Remember.
Never forget. Never again.
May the names of the millions be for a blessing.
My grandmother was born in Germany. She was a twin.
She survived firebombings, and being turned in. She survived the work camps, even when the rest of her group was sent to Auschwitz. She was sick with lead poisoning, so the Nazis didn’t bother sending her. She was already dying, after all.
Then liberation came. My grandfather was an American Army admin officer. They were married in Berlin and moved back to the United States after the war. Bubbe had a bad back for the rest of her life, and developed cancer. Her twin also made it out (I don’t know the details) and never had cancer.
My Bubbe died of metastatic cancer in 1985. In the 40 years she lived post-Shoah, she had two children and saw three of her grandchildren born and named as Jews. She was married to a man who thought the sun rose and set in her eyes. She made art, travelled, loved and was loved in return.
I never got to know my Bubbe, she died when I was too young to remember her. But I should have had that chance. The Shoah took her from her family too soon, and she was one of the survivors.
Yom HaShoah - “Remembering with Resources from the Roosevelts”
Wednesday, April 27, 2022, 2PM ET
Karen Hochhauser of the Jewish Federation of Dutchess County will discuss the importance of Yom HaShoah to our community – and our world – with Jeffrey Urbin, Roosevelt Library Education Specialist. This program will stream live to the Library’s official YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
For Yom HaShoah: Deportation by David Dzienciarski (1912-1980), oil on canvas, Israel, ca. 1970s. Collection of Yeshiva University Museum. Gift of the artist’s Estate. This is one of a series of paintings by Dzienciarski, a self-taught artist, depicting his hometown, Lodz.
A Prayer for Yom HaShoah – composed by Rabbi Lord Sacks.
Today, on Yom HaShoah, we remember the victims of the greatest crime of man against man – the young, the old, the innocent, the million and a half children, starved, shot, given lethal injections, gassed, burned and turned to ash, because they were deemed guilty of the crime of being different.
We remember what happens when hate takes hold of the human heart and turns it to stone; what happens when victims cry for help and there is no one listening; what happens when humanity fails to recognise that those who are not in our image are none the less in G-d’s image.
We remember and pay tribute to the survivors, who bore witness to what happened, and to the victims, so that robbed of their lives, they would not be robbed also of their deaths.
We remember and give thanks for the righteous of the nations who saved lives, often at risk of their own, teaching us how in the darkest night we can light a candle of hope.
Today, on Yom HaShoah, we call on You, Almighty G-d, to help us hear Your voice that says in every generation:
Do not murder.
Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour.
Do not oppress the stranger.
We know that whilst we do not have the ability to change the past, we can change the future.
We know that whilst we cannot bring the dead back to life, we can ensure their memories live on and that their deaths were not in vain.
And so, on this Yom HaShoah, we commit ourselves to one simple act: Yizkor, Remember.
May the souls of the victims be bound in the bond of everlasting life. Amen.
Today is Yom Ha Shoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and great-granddaughter of great-grandparents slaughtered, today is a day of great pain for me and my family.
That being said, it is also a day where I feel grateful and strong. Grateful not just for the survivors who rebuilt a nation out of darkness, but also grateful to the numberless Gentiles who risked their lives to protect Jews during the war.
My people are stronger than world-wide, history-spanning fear, jealousy, and hatred. We say Never Forgetand Never Again to ensure that history does not repeat itself. Masada will not fall again.
On behalf of my family and all of the House if Israel, don’t ever let anyone make you feel ashamed of who you are. Stand and be proud.
Gertruda Zelenková with her son, Martin, and Martin’s puppets.
Gertruda Zelenková and her son were recognized in a photograph at the Museum of Jewish Art and History at the end of 2008. Soon the museum was contacted by one of Gertruda’s friends who had several photos of her family from the war, as well as correspondence cards that Gertruda sent her from Terezín, and a set of puppets that Gertruda’s son, Martin, played with.
Gertruda, her husband František, and Martin were deported to Terezín in July 1943 and then to Auschwitz in October 1944, where all three perished. The Zelenka family were supposed to leave Czechoslovakia for Britain, but delayed their departure by a few days on account of Martin’s illness. This account is confirmed by a British visa application for Martin in December 1938, which is kept in the National Archives, Prague.
Let me tell you a short story. The main reason my grandfather survived the Holocaust was because he was of working age, being 14 in 1939. Instead of spending most of his years in ghettoes and death camps, he was predominantly in labor camps. That meant that the Nazi commandants had at least some incentive to keep their prisoners alive, but only to a point.
One day three prisoners escaped from the camp. To punish the inmates for the actions of their fellows, every single Jew was lined up in the courtyard. The commandant counted each Jew down the line, shooting every tenth Jew in the head. My grandfather was number nine.
Why do I talk about anti-semitism? Because I am number nine. I am the person who exists by the barest of margins. And if I ever let my guard down about the safety of Jews in the world, I will allow for the possibility that something like that will be done to me or to my children.
Do Jews talk about anti-semtism and the Holocaust too much? No. Anti-semites just don’t want us to talk about them. They know if we stop talking about it people will stop caring about it. If people stop caring about it, they won’t pay attention the next time someone comes for us.
So I’m sorry if it’s annoying. Or if you care about something else more. Or if you buy into anti-semitic myths and believe that Jews are somehow more privileged than the dominant ethnic group of any country other than Israel.
I will never stop talking about anti-semitism and the Holocaust. I will say “Never Again” with my last dying breath.
Today is Yom Hashoah (יום השואה), or Holocaust remembrance day. Today is a day where Jews around the world remember. They remember and commemorate the 6 millions Jews that were slaughtered throughout the holocaust, from 1939-1945. Out of the 6 million, around 1.5 million were children. 1.5 million children that had a future. 1.5 million children that would have had children, who would have had children. One of them could have had been the scientist who finds a cure for cancer. One of them could have been a researcher that discovers a groundbreaking technological breakout. All this was blackened out by the mass murdering of the Jews by Nazi Germany and it’s allies. Take a moment out of your day just to remember, and understand the horrors that one group can cause, and how many lives were lost, due to ignorance, hatred and racism.
On the eve of Yom ha’Shoa, I remember the members of my family who I have never met — the great-aunts and great-uncles who died, the cousins and aunts and uncles who could have been, the branches of the family tree which were severed by a hate that coalesced into horrible form. I remember those who did live and do no longer, and the burdens they carried with them — the weight of guilt and memory and loss — until their end. May all of their memories be a blessing, and may we carry them with us and find comfort. Zichronam livracha.
