Yom Hazikaron L'shoah V'l'giborah, or Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, takes place on 27 Nisan (May 1). This is a day to remember the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust as a result of the actions carried out by Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolph Hitler.
Although there are many today who deny the Holocaust ever occurred, history proves herself as a silent witness to the truth.
Inaugurated in 1953, by Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion and Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Yom HaShoah was established because education about the Holocaust (Shoah - meaning catastrophe) emphasized the suffering inflicted on millions of European Jews by the Nazis.
But surveys 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 changed the emphasis to document how the Jews resisted their Nazi tormentors through passive resistance, while retaining their human dignity in the most unbearable conditions. They also resisted by fighting the Nazis in the ghettos and by joining underground groups who fought against the Third Reich.
Yom HaShoah opens in Israel at sundown in a somber state ceremony held at the Warsaw Ghetto Plaza at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Holocaust survivors light six torches symbolizing the approximately six million Jews who were killed.
As we take a moment of silence to remember those who are no more, let us also take our stand and declare 'Never Again!'
Dawn
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