There are two days specifically set up to remember the events of the Holocaust. One of which, Yom Hashoah. begins tonight.
Unlike Holocaust Memorial Day, Yom Hashoah is specifically set up for Jews to remember the evil event.
There are two important points on this day:
--To remember those who we have lost
--To Educated today’s children about what happened.
The Day started specifically because of a lack of togetherness in Israeli’s in the 1950s and those who went thru the holocaust.
Surveys conducted in the late 1950s indicated that young Israelis did not sympathize with the victims of the Holocaust, since they believed that European Jews were “led like sheep for slaughter.” The Israeli educational curriculum began to shift the emphasis to documenting how Jews resisted their Nazi tormentors through “passive resistance”–retaining their human dignity in the most unbearable conditions–and by “active resistance,” fighting the Nazis in the ghettos and joining underground partisans who battled the Third Reich in its occupied countries.
The day is celebrated differently depending on where one is located.
Since the early 1960s, the sound of a siren on Yom Hashoah stops traffic and pedestrians throughout the State of Israel for two minutes of silent devotion. The siren blows at sundown and once again at 11 a.m. on this date. All radio and television programs during this day are connected in one way or another with the Jewish destiny in World War II, including personal interviews with survivors. Even the musical programs are adapted to the atmosphere of Yom Hashoah. There is no public entertainment on Yom Hashoah, as theaters, cinemas, pubs, and other public venues are closed throughout Israel.
In North America events are either held in Synagogues or in the Jewish community as a whole. Events for the day are still being created. In Reform areas Six Days of Destruction a book published n 1988 by Elie Wiesel and Rabbi Albert Friedlander. In the Conservative community The Holocaust Scroll which contains personal recollections of Holocaust survivors and is written in biblical style, by Rabbis and lay people in Israel, Canada and the US.
Having lost relatives to the Holocaust directly, as well as having relatives who survived the camps but are now deceased the day holds specific significance to me.
Please take a moment and reflect on the Holocaust. It is a day that even those who are not religious in practice often take time to reflect on the Holocaust.