Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah

Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, is observed annually on the 27th day of Nissan of the Hebrew calendar. This day of commemoration has grown in importance and support worldwide since its inception in 1951.

And So It Begins

In 1933, the Nazi Party lead by then Chancellor Adolf Hitler began the systematic destruction of civil liberties in Germany. Jewish citizens were especially targeted and between 1933 and 1935, hundreds of anti-Semitic laws were enacted designed to marginalize and isolate them from the rest of German society. The passage of the Nuremberg Racial Laws, which based the definition of being Jewish not on religious practice but on race, distinction swelled the ranks of those who would be affected by the new laws.

As legislation was passed limiting the activities and rights of German Jews, propaganda designed to further dehumanized and victimize them opened the way to increasingly violent public displays of discrimination. Kristallnacht (the Night of the Broken Glass) took place in November 1938 and signaled the beginning of mass arrests and deportation based on race.

The Lost Millions of the Holocaust

Intended for political prisoners, the first concentration camp, Dachau, opened in 1933 on the outskirts of Munich. By 1945, more than 200,000 prisoners, a third of which were Jews, had made the trip to Dachau; most never left. Before the end of World War II, more than 1,500 concentration, extermination, slave labor, and transit camps operated in Nazi held territory filled with an estimated 6 million Jewish men, women, and children and a similar number of political prisoners, the disabled or ill, homosexuals, the Roma, Communists, and other undesirables. The liquidation of ghettos in Warsaw and Lodz, Poland, Budapest, Hungary and elsewhere added to the body count. The total number of those murdered by the Nazi will never be known but experts agree that approximately 11 million died in the camps and ghettos, six million of whom were Jewish.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day was established in 1951 by the Israeli parliament. Over the years the name has been shortened to simply Holocaust Remembrance Day and is now commemorated all over the world. The date was chosen after two years of debates. The Zionists, many of whom had fought as partisans during the war, lobbied for the anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising but the date, April 19, 1943, interferes with Passover and was therefore rejected. Each year the date of the commemoration is different since Hebrew and Gregorian calendars are not in sync, and additional allowances are made so that it does not affect Shabbat.

Observances and Commemorations

Each year, communities worldwide host remembrance ceremonies for the victims of the holocaust. In Israel, sirens wail at 11:00 am and again at dusk halting all activity throughout the country for two minutes of silence. Reading out the names of the victims to emphasis the enormity of the loss, lighting memorial candles, reciting a Kaddish, a Jewish prayer for the dead, and gathering to listen to the stories of survivors are other events frequently organized in support of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

For many, Holocaust Remembrance Day is specifically dedicated to the Jewish victims of Hitler's Final Solution. However, as approximately 16 to 20 million non-Jews also died as a result of the Nazi policies, communities and groups throughout the world also include these victims in the observances of the day.

Sources: http://urj.org/holidays/hashoah/; http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Spring_Holidays/Yom_Hashoah/yom_hashoah.html; http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/28722/