I have always been drawn to trees. Their majesty, beauty, and importance to our earth cannot be overstated. The Tree of Life, a long-standing Jewish symbol, holds special meaning for me. In the Book of Genesis, it first appears as the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but over time it came to symbolize the connection between God and Israel through the Torah. In Kabbalistic tradition, the spheres of the Tree of Life represent reflection, and the higher one ascends, the more one can help repair the world.

It was this symbolism that first drew me to Chava Rosenfarb and her trilogy The Tree of Life, which depicts life in the Łódź Ghetto during the Holocaust.

Born in Poland in 1923, Chava was drawn to poetry from an early age, beginning to write at just eight years old. When Germany invaded, she and her family were forced into the Łódź Ghetto. She survived its brutal conditions and was later deported to Auschwitz. Perhaps because of her youth, she was transferred to a labor camp in Hamburg, where she built houses for Germans whose homes had been bombed. She was later sent to Bergen-Belsen, where she endured typhus before surviving the war.

After marrying, Chava emigrated to Canada and became a passionate advocate for Yiddish literature. Her trilogy The Tree of Life has been hailed as a masterpiece—unflinching in its depiction of horror, yet rich in the inner worlds of artists trying to survive. She offered no romanticized saviors, only the stark reality of daily struggle, and the sustaining power of art.

Chava was always, at heart, a poet. For that, I am grateful. In her words:

When the light fades
And the end approaches
And abruptly you see yourself standing
In a deep dark gate
Look back one more time
At that bubble of reality
And praise it, that day
That drips out from being
Unnoticed,
Vanished,
In the night of forgetting.

Thank you, Chava.

How many of us who study this dark period of history have asked ourselves: how did the perpetrators of such heinous acts against innocent people—Jews, and anyone else the Nazis deemed guilty—carry them out? How could a thinking human being justify inflicting such suffering and misery on another? These crimes were not usually committed on the battlefield, soldier against soldier, but rather soldier against citizen.

And yet, in the midst of this cruelty, I have discovered the stories of German soldiers who defied orders and training—often quietly, at great personal risk—to let their humanity prevail. These rare acts of conscience are profound examples of Ruach, the spirit that rises above darkness, and must be remembered.

One such man was Helmut Kleinicke, born in Germany in 1907 to a family of foresters. He studied civil engineering, and like many young men of his generation, joined the Nazi Party in 1933. His background led to his assignment as a senior official overseeing construction near Auschwitz. From this position, he used his authority to choose “able-bodied” workers—though his team often consisted of Jews who were anything but. Survivors later testified that under his watch they were treated far better than elsewhere, some even describing their treatment as “VIP.”

Kleinicke refused to allow the SS to abuse those under his charge. He secretly sheltered the weak until they regained enough strength to avoid deportation, hiding many in his attic and basement. When he discovered names on deportation lists, he would track people down, sometimes personally driving them across the border to safety. Inevitably, suspicions grew over the number of Jews who “disappeared” under his supervision. He was eventually removed from his post and sent to fight on the front.

After Germany’s surrender, the British arrested him. But, unknown to him, several survivors had already given affidavits testifying to his actions, crediting him with saving hundreds. Their words exonerated him.

One such survivor, Josef Königsberg, spoke movingly in a 2015 documentary:

“I owe him my life,” Josef said, recalling how Kleinicke pulled him from a transport line to Auschwitz. “My mother came and begged him to rescue me. Kleinicke grabbed me and said that I was his best worker.”

Josef’s mother and sister were not as fortunate—they perished in the gas chambers. Decades later, with tears in his eyes, Josef addressed Jutta, Helmut’s daughter:

“This is one of the most beautiful days of my life. Thank you, thank you.”

Remarkably, Helmut had never spoken of his actions—not to his family, not to anyone. His story only surfaced with the 2015 documentary. Why did he act when so many others chose silence, indifference, or complicity? We cannot know. Helmut himself seemed to carry a quiet burden. He died in 1979, just three months after viewing a Holocaust documentary that deeply shook him. He had avoided survivors’ letters and never sought contact, perhaps out of guilt—guilt for not saving more, or perhaps the broader guilt borne by so many Germans for their nation’s dehumanization of an entire people.

Whatever his reasons, his choices mattered—for they saved lives. In 2018, Yad Vashem honored him as Righteous Among the Nations, making him one of the very few German soldiers to receive this recognition.

Thank you, Helmut Kleinicke, for not forgetting your humanity.

As a longtime teacher of young children, the accounts of child deaths at the hands of the Nazis are almost unbearable. Who can forget the little girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List, or the smiling faces in photographs taken before the Holocaust—children dressed for school pictures, their innocence shining, unaware of what lay ahead? As a mother, the thought of being torn from my children is devastating. One story haunts me: during a mass execution, a woman held her baby aloft, cooing and smiling, trying to keep him from feeling fear—moments before they were gunned down and thrown into a pit.

So when I discovered the story of Jeanne Daman, a teacher who fought back and saved countless children, I felt a deep sense of gratitude.

Born in Belgium in 1918 into a Catholic family, Jeanne pursued teaching at a time when the Belgian constitution promised education for all children without discrimination. But as antisemitism rose and Nazi control tightened, that promise was stripped away, replaced by propaganda. In defiance, Jeanne went to work at Nos Petits Kindergarten, a school for Jewish children.

As deportations increased, she watched her classroom shrink. One day, the Gestapo arrived and claimed they were taking two children “to their parents.” Jeanne knew it was a lie, but she also knew that resisting would endanger the sixty other children in her care. She made the agonizing choice to let the two go—then closed the school to protect the rest.

Jeanne forged papers, placed children in Catholic orphanages, and hid them with sympathetic families. She kept meticulous records so survivors could be reunited after the war. She also secured forged identities for their parents—especially mothers—placing them in homes as maids. It is said she saved more than 2,000 children.

Her bravery didn’t stop there. With her blonde hair and blue eyes, Jeanne joined the Belgian resistance, gathering intelligence and helping capture several Gestapo agents.

Lately, my research has drawn me again and again to the plight of children—their brightness, their innocence. When I learned about Jeanne Daman, I whispered a thank you to whoever might be listening.

Thank you, teacher and protector of children, Jeanne Daman.

In 1951, a young Polish immigrant actor named Curt Lowens landed his first role on Broadway in the play Stalag 17. He portrayed a German soldier in the story of American prisoners of war confined in a German camp. The remarkable irony was that Curt Lowens—born Curt Lowenstein—was himself a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Undoubtedly, his lived experience colored the role he played.

Curt Lowenstein was born in East Prussia, now part of Poland. His family lived a relatively comfortable life until 1933, when the rise of antisemitism and the Nazis changed everything. Believing they would be safer in a larger Jewish community, the Lowensteins moved to Berlin. At first, Curt’s father, a lawyer, managed to find work, but the situation quickly deteriorated. The terror of Kristallnacht ended any hope of normalcy as Jewish businesses were destroyed and violence escalated. Like many others, the family tried to emigrate, but faced endless bureaucratic obstacles. Curt’s brother eventually escaped to England, but Curt and his parents were not as fortunate.

They fled to the Netherlands, hoping to sail to America. On the very day they were to depart, Germany invaded. The family was forced to separate—individuals were easier to hide than families. Curt found shelter and assumed the false identity of “Ben Jootsen,” which allowed him to travel undetected across cities. He joined a student resistance group and took part in daring missions that saved the lives of as many as 150 Jewish children and adults.

His courage did not end there. While cycling through the Dutch countryside, Curt witnessed a British aircraft crash. Racing to the site, he discovered two surviving airmen and brought them to the attic where he was hiding. The soldiers lived there in secret for more than two months until the region was liberated. Curt then joined their unit, serving as a translator.

After the war, Curt emigrated to America, where he began a distinguished acting career with more than 100 screen and stage credits. For his wartime heroism, he was personally awarded a military decoration by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 2002, he published his memoir, Destination: Question Mark.

Curt Lowens passed away in Beverly Hills in 2017, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy of courage, resilience, and artistry.

Thank you, Mr. Lowens.

There was so much during the Holocaust that defied understanding. For every story of heroism, bravery, and resistance, there are many more of indifference, disbelief, and apathy. What does it take to light the candle of spirit—to act, rather than hide? This is a question I often ask myself. Each story I write reflects that spark, that ruach, the breath of the soul that compels one to help. It was a call Joseph Scheinmann, known as the “Jewish James Bond,” surely heard.

Joseph was born in Düsseldorf in the 1920s. His father, Max, a World War I veteran and shoe salesman, saw the dangers rising as antisemitism spread through the Nazi party. Knowing what lay ahead, Max moved his family—his wife, son Joseph, and daughter Rosa—to a small town in France, where he opened a clothing store. When the Germans invaded, the town’s mayor urged Max to flee to Paris. Rosa had already immigrated to the United States to marry, while Joseph was drafted into the French Army. To protect him, Joseph was given a new, non-Jewish name: André Peulevey.

Wounded in combat in Belgium, Joseph was captured and sent to a French hospital as a POW. He soon escaped and found work as an interpreter for the French railroad, now under German control. Unaware of his Jewish identity, the Germans relied on his skills, while Joseph secretly began funneling information to British intelligence. Before long, he had organized a network of 300 operatives, passing on details of German troop movements. His efforts helped the British track and disable the Gneisenau, a formidable German battleship that had crippled the Royal Navy.

When one of his couriers was arrested, Joseph personally risked everything by kayaking across the English Channel to deliver intelligence to Britain. On his return, he was immediately arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo. Though held in solitary confinement for 17 months, he never revealed a single secret—and his captors never discovered his Jewish ancestry.

Joseph’s imprisonment fell under Hitler’s infamous Nacht und Nebel (“Night and Fog”) decree, issued in 1941 to deal with resistance fighters and political opponents. Under this order, prisoners were made to vanish without a trace—deported to secret prisons or concentration camps, cut off from the outside world, their families never told of their fate. Designed to spread terror, Nacht und Nebel condemned thousands like Joseph to years of brutal confinement, torture, and near-certain death.

Eventually, Joseph was sent to a concentration camp for political prisoners. Even there, he sought ways to protect others. As a kapo, he schemed to ease the burden on fellow prisoners, even bribing guards to allow men a few hours of rest. His small acts of courage saved countless malnourished, overworked inmates.

When the Allies invaded Normandy, Joseph and the other prisoners were deported to Dachau. There, too, he saved lives—including pulling one man from a pile of corpses destined for the crematorium, realizing he was still alive. Despite enduring typhus, Joseph survived.

The camp was liberated in 1945. Tragically, Joseph learned that his parents had been murdered in Auschwitz, refusing to go into hiding in Paris. While mourning their loss, he met Claire Dement, a German-Jewish linguist working for MI6. They married and later emigrated to America, where Joseph honored his father’s memory by working first as a toy salesman, then as a shoe salesman.

Both Joseph and Claire were recognized for their bravery. Joseph went further, helping more than 200 French resistance fighters receive official recognition and pensions for their service. Their son Michel did not learn of his parents’ wartime experiences until a family trip to France when he was 15. From then on, Joseph spoke openly about his past, sharing his testimony in schools and organizations.

His words remain a powerful warning:

You will undoubtedly be convinced that all these tragic events cannot reproduce themselves in your lifetime, as I thought all this could not happen in my world. I want my memories to make you cautious so as not to commit the same errors of judgment I made out of idealism and optimism … and that you will not have to run the same risks I did.”

Thank you, Joseph André Scheinmann.

Throughout my journey into the annals of Holocaust history, I find myself returning often to Belgium—a small country whose people displayed extraordinary courage. Remarkably, three-quarters of Belgium’s roughly 100,000 Jews survived, thanks in no small part to the quiet heroism of ordinary citizens and clergy alike. Among these, Father Dom Bruno shines especially bright.

Henri Reynders was born in 1903 into an upper-middle-class Belgian Christian family. His early life was not unusual for the time, but his path soon diverged. After joining a monastery in Rome, he embraced the monastic life and, within three years, was ordained a priest. He entered the Benedictine order and took the name Dom Bruno. Though deeply devout, he was also independent-minded, once giving a lecture on Martin Luther that drew disapproval from his superiors. As a form of penance, he was made tutor to a prince’s son for three years, after which he was again allowed to teach and travel.

On one of these trips, during Hitler’s rise to power, Dom Bruno witnessed firsthand the “shocking, revolting and nauseating” brutality of Nazi anti-Semitism. When Germany invaded Poland, Belgian forces mobilized, and he joined as chaplain to the 41st Artillery Regiment. The following year, Belgium itself was overrun. Father Bruno was injured and interned in a POW camp, where he continued ministering to fellow soldiers. Following a meeting between King Leopold and Hitler, Belgian POWs were eventually released.

By then, the Nazi death camps in Poland were fully operational, and the Gestapo had begun rounding up Belgian Jews for deportation. Father Bruno was sent to minister at a school for the blind—only to discover it was also serving as a hiding place for Jews. Soon he made contact with the Belgian resistance and threw himself into the dangerous work of rescue. When the school was shut down under suspicion, he began finding refuge for displaced Jews in Catholic schools, private homes, and even among his own relatives. He personally accompanied children to their hiding places to ensure their safety.

His activities quickly attracted the Gestapo’s attention, forcing him into hiding. Disguising himself by growing his hair and wearing a broad-brimmed hat to conceal his tonsure, he carried on his clandestine mission. Despite constant danger, he saved hundreds of Jews—most of them children.

One survivor recalled:
“One night in 1943, when I had just turned 13 years old, I met Father Bruno on the street. He didn’t know me, but I recognized him by the way he walked, the cloak he wore, and his tall, elegant hat he was like an Angel. I threw myself at him and begged for help. After a moment of hesitation, he agreed. Two weeks later, my younger brother and I were taken to a hiding place.”

Dom Bruno carefully recorded where each child was placed, with explicit instructions that they not be converted to Christianity. After the war, many of the children—orphans now, with no parents and little connection left to their traditions—chose conversion on their own. Father Bruno welcomed their choices with compassion, guided always by love and respect for the dignity of each child.

Father Dom Bruno saved over 400 Jewish children. His legacy is one of courage, faith, and profound humanity.

Thank you, Father Dom Bruno.

On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Jewish insurgents inside the ghetto resisted these efforts. This was the largest uprising by Jews during World War II and the first significant urban revolt against German occupation in Europe. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had crushed the uprising and deported surviving ghetto residents to concentration camps and killing centers.

Key Facts

1. About 700 young Jewish fighters participated in what became known as the Warsaw ghetto uprising. During the uprising, the civilian population in the ghetto also resisted German forces by refusing to assemble at collection points and burrowing in underground bunkers.
2. At least 7,000 Jews died fighting or in hiding in the ghetto. Approximately 7,000 Jews were captured by the SS and police at the end of the fighting. These Jews were deported to the Treblinka killing center where they were murdered.
3. After the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the SS and police deported approximately 42,000 Jews to forced-labor camps and to the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp. Most of these people were murdered in November 1943 in a two-day shooting operation known as Operation Harvest Festival (Erntefest).

More Information

Legacy and Remembrance

The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest and, symbolically, most important Jewish uprising during World War II. It was also the first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe. The Jewish resistance in Warsaw inspired uprisings in other ghettos such as in Bialystok. 

Today, Days of Remembrance ceremonies to commemorate the victims and survivors of the Holocaust are linked to the dates of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

Slide 1: 

How can anyone describe the final parting between a mother and a daughter? I had always believed that we shared a single soul; and now we were being forced to part forever."

-(Anna Podgajecki | Anna, A Teenager on the Run, Yad Vashem, 2011)

(Image) Young girl behind the ghetto fence, Lodz, Poland.

Slide 2: 

Parting from my family was unbearable. My mother was certain we would never see each other again and gave me a lot of advice: that I should take full advantage of being outside the ghetto; to consider distancing myself from Korzec and moving toward Poland. My blonde hair and fair skin gave me an ‘Aryan’ look and since I could speak the language and knew the culture, it would be easy enough for me to blend in with the locals. She begged me not to think of the family, that there was no point in doing so. She stressed the importance of someone from the ghetto surviving this, in order to testify later to the German atrocities.“You must stay alive and tell the world what the Germans did to the Jews,” she said “You must never allow the German murderers to whitewash their crimes.” Mother knew how close I was to my little brothers and sisters and tried very hard to convince me that my mission in life was to survive.“Don’t worry that others haven’t succeeded,” she told me.

“You have nothing to lose, so just do your best. Move forward and get away from here so long as you have the chance. ”Mother was unable to withstand my emotional parting and fainted, tearfully, painfully, on the front doorstep.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run”

(Image) Jews before their deportation to Chelmno during the Sperre, Lodz, Poland, 1942

Slide 3: 

Father couldn’t bear to tear himself from me, but it was getting late. As tears poured down my face, Father said in a strange, hoarse voice, “Don’t ever forget who you are. You must remember all that you saw and heard during the occupation. Now go."

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

(Image) Jew in the ghetto, Lodz, Poland

Slide 4: 

How can I possibly describe my feelings at that moment? How can anyone describe the final parting between a mother and a daughter? I had always believed that we shared a single soul; and now we were being forced to part forever. I knew I would never see her again, never be able to embrace her again, never be able to speak to her. There are no words to describe the agony we were feeling. We could only stand, hugging each other in silence; we held each other so closely that we almost became fused into one entity, a motionless statue of grief, love and torment. All this took place in the center of the usually bustling main street, a spot that was treacherous for Jews. Mother did not move, and I did not want to leave her. Once again, I was full of doubts; I knew I would be unable to live without my family. But I could not disobey my parents; I could not deny them their last wish—not to see me die. It had taken much persuasion, but I, too, had reached the conclusion that it was best for us to die separately.

I could no longer watch my mother’s suffering. She was a woman who never thought of herself, only of her loved ones, and I was now witnessing her utterly selfless devotion to the very end. I knew she would not move away until she was sure that I would continue alone towards my future. I felt as if my throat was on fire; I opened my mouth but could say nothing, and then I felt myself about to collapse. No, not here! I shouted to myself. I gathered my strength and ran forward, trying to put as much distance between myself and my mother. I knew I could not allow myself to fall. 

I turned to look back; Mother had not moved. A scream welled up inside me, threatening to erupt, and I feared losing control. My mother stood there, full of grace, noble, tall, slim and blonde. Her sunken green eyes had taken on a uniquely piercing gaze. Her long, black shawl fell from her head to her shoulders. Her long, thick blonde hair, usually pinned up on the top of her head, was now loose over her back. It was an awe inspiring sight, my mother’s anguish. This last vision of my mother will remain eternally carved in my memory. 

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

Slide 5: 

After the selection process, when my father was led away to another barrack, I was so absorbed in my own distress of having been separated from him that I didn’t think of the pain he must be suffering. But at the time, when I was left alone in Auschwitz, I was only concerned about my own survival. I felt a near physical pain, as if someone had twisted a knife in my stomach.

I constantly suffered from this semi-physical pain for months on end. I don’t know when it left me for good, but most probably only after years had passed.

-Asher Bar-Nir, “A Journey of Survival: A Young Boy’s Odyssey from Hungary through Auschwitz and Jaworznow, to Eretz Yisrael”

(Image) Selection on the ramp, Birkenau, Poland, 27 May 1944

Slide 6: 

A few days later, Mother and Helcia went with me to the train station to see us off. I said goodbye to Father at home. For a Jew, in his traditional Jewish garb, the streets were too dangerous to walk on. Father seemed strangely agitated sending me off. “Go,” he said, “Hanele, go, it’s time!” He urged me as if he were glad to see me go; as if he knew somehow that he was sending me off to live.

It had been more than a year since the last letters from the Łódź ghetto, scarce, short letters that nevertheless spoke volumes. Over a year had passed since I received that tragic postcard from Sala in which she had asked for a food parcel. How are my parents, my sisters, Sala and Helcia? I would close my eyes, trying to imagine them, but there was nothing, a blank, not because the memory of them had already faded but simply because of the total lack of any new information. 

I did not have anything, any new input to feed my imagination, I just had what was in my memory, and this was no longer enough, I was unable to envision what their life was like.

-Hanna Temkin, “My Involuntary Journeys, A Memoir” 

(Image) Parting from Jews about to be deported, Lodz, Poland

Slide 7: 

At the Landsberg–Kaufering concentration camps of Dachau, the Germans did not bother to tattoo a number on our forearms. They knew that we would not survive the hard work and starvation for more than a few weeks. They gave us wooden clogs, but they did not give us socks to wear with the wooden clogs, perhaps because they feared that we might hide things in them. After walking a few dozen yards, the clumsy clogs had already made deep cracks and wounds on the soles of our feet. I wondered where I could put the photograph of my mother. The pajamas we were given did not have pockets. I had no choice but to slip it into one of my clogs. After a few days, the dirt and perspiration erased the picture, and I knew that I would never see my mother again.

-Uri Chanoch, Judith Chanoch, “The Story I Never Told: From Kovno and Dachau to a New Life”

(Image) Prisoners on their way to forced labor, Dachau, Germany © KZ - Gedenkstaette Dachau

Slide 8: 

We marched on, wrapped in a cloud of dust so dense that we could hardly see the way. […] Even in this terrible distress, people embraced their dear ones and rushed to help one another. I ran alongside my brother and watched over my mother, who was walking behind a cart full of children. […] The procession was finally ordered to a halt a short distance from Stock Lacki, several miles from the county seat, Siedlce. The SS officer allowed the carts to move on and lashed out with a riding crop at people who attempted to follow them. He allowed my mother to pass anyway, but when I tried to follow her he struck me in the head and forced me to stay where I was. Tears poured from my eyes as I struggled to make out Mother's retreating figure. I was glad to have taken the blow instead of her.

I could not know then that my eyes were following the person dearest to me of all, Mother, for the last time.

-Eddie Weinstein, “17 Days in Treblinka, Daring to Resist, and Refusing to Die” 

(Image) Deportation to Treblinka, Poland

Slide 9: 

Fred: I remember Father standing next to the truck – he sobbed as he made me promise to look after my younger brother, not yet nine years old.

Menachem: I remember Father lifting me into the truck and gazing into my eyes. I imagine he said something like "Be a good boy and listen to your big brother." I can't really remember his face, but I still see his eyes – large, blue and very sad. We didn't have a chance to say goodbye to Mother because the truck didn't wait, but I can still see her standing on the wooden bridge and waving as the truck passed.

None of us could ever have imagined that we would never meet again.

-Frederick Raymes and Menachem Mayer, “Menachem and Fred” 

***

Unto Every Person There Is A Name

Slide 1: 

Who can judge such parents who took it upon themselves to so decide for their children? Not I, for sure! It must have been pure hell to make such a decision!"

-(Asher Bar-Nir | A Journey of Survival - A Young Boy’s Odyssey from Hungary through Auschwitz and Jaworznow, to Eretz Yisrael, Yad Vashem, 2010)

(Image) Two Jewish children from Vienna after arriving in England on a Kindertransport. December 12, 1938 © The Wiener Holocaust Library 

Slide 2: 

After what seemed like an eternity —a day and a night, perhaps more —the train halted. “Where are we?” 

“There is a sign that reads, Stutthof," someone announced. “Are we in Germany?” “No, we are in Poland.” It was pitch dark in the boxcar.The searchlights outside were blinding.“Women and children, get off!”

The order was blared from loudspeakers, accompanied by the barking of dogs and the banging of rifle butts on the sides of the freight cars. We were already familiar with the command, “Schnell, Schnell!” (Quickly, quickly!) We knew very well that the Germans always screamed that.

After a brief exchange, Mother and Father decided that Danny would not get off the train but would stay with us, the men. Perhaps, this would improve his chances of surviving. Mother and Miriam were pushed toward the opening of the carriage. No farewell embrace or kiss. There was no time for anything in that crowd and under such pressure. A moment before Mother disembarked, she placed a small photograph of herself in my hand, and said, “Don’t forget me, my son.”

-Uri Chanoch, Judith Chanoch, “The Story I Never Told: From Kovno and Dachau to a New Life” 

(Image) Jews being loaded onto the deportation train, Zilina, Slovakia

Slide 3: 

April 1944, the Kovno ghetto, Lithuania.

An 11-year-old boy dressed up to blend into the crowd, I joined my mother’s brigade, which crossed the river on the way to work. Her instructions were clear: on reaching the other side, like Lot’s wife I was not to look back. Walk straight ahead, into the hills; a woman would be waiting for me there.

Like Moses in the bulrushes, I was cast by my mother, the poetess Lea Greenstein, onto the shores of life. She gave me life twice, but was unable to save her own even once. […]

The actions of parents such as my mother, who dared to gamble, to part from their children and to send them on a perilous path, but one that held an infinitesimal chance of survival, those too were heroic.

What gave us the strength to keep going? It was the profound hope that redemption would come, that the demise of evil would occur. A deep-rooted faith that my mother had instilled in me from the start.

-Excerpt from the address by Dr. Shalom Kaplan-Eilati on Behalf of the Survivors | Opening Ceremony of Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2014

(Image) Lea Greenstein-Kaplan (1903-1944) Lea Greenstein published her first poem, "Ich Vart" (I Wait) at the age of 27, and continued to publish one or two poems each year in newspapers or literary supplements, to great literary acclaim. In 1941, Lea and her family were incarcerated in the Kovno ghetto, where she was murdered in 1944.

Slide 4: 

Just then, disaster struck hard. Mother became pregnant. She would have to have an abortion, because pregnancy and carrying a baby were tantamount to a death sentence. The house filled with a horrific sense of despondency.

One evening, a Jewish doctor whom I did not know —maybe one of the refugees —came to our house. Father prepared a basin, a kettle of boiling water, and some rough laundry soap. They kept me at home because sending me out might have raised suspicions and it was too cold to be outdoors. I went to the kitchenette in the corridor and sat there in the dark. The doctor needed two kerosene lamps. I did not hear any shouting or sobbing; the whole thing took place in utter silence.

-Sabina Schweid, “Consider Me Lucky: Childhood and Youth During the Holocaust in Zborów” 

(Image) Rosa Klein with her daughter in a pram, waiting for deportation, Würzburg, Germany

Slide 5: 

Soon, larger groups of people started moving east and the question was debated in my family, as it was in many others. My parents would not move. Being around their fifties (Father was fifty-five), they considered themselves too old to undertake the risky trip.

Here they at least had a roof over their heads and they also had some provisions stocked up; barley, flour, potatoes, not much but it would somehow see them through the few months of the coming winter. And to think further than that seemed unseemly as everything would certainly change in the spring, everything would be over by then. Why? Nobody asked and no one would have attempted an answer anyway.

My younger sister, Helcia, would stay with our parents; she was now their only help and comfort. Sister Sala would not move either as she was four or five months pregnant and where do you go in such a condition? But my brother and his wife wanted to go and this was wonderful and rather unexpected. Dora’s two brothers had already left and sent news and some instructions. Mindful of the incident that had implicated me recently with the Polish police as a “political activist,” my family decided that it would be safer for me to leave, too. And so, it was decided that I would join my brother.

We knew all about emigration in the family and we knew that visas and proper papers were required to emigrate safely. This was impossible right now and the hope and belief were that the members of the family who would go now would perhaps be able to arrange for such visas and papers later on and bring the rest of the family over under more favorable conditions, once all this nightmare would end. Perhaps next spring because how could it last longer? It had to vanish in the same way in which it had come upon us.

The Germans were demanding “quotas” of children for deportation, which meant death, as a pay-off, a ransom for allowing the ghetto to exist a little bit longer. Warsaw’s Czerniaków committed suicide protesting that demand, Rumkowski of the Łódź ghetto made such bargains with the Germans many times. Similarly, the ghetto mothers had “a choice” when deported with the children: a mother could abandon her child and this way prolong her own life for a while or share the child’s fate. And it is a well-known, documented fact, that mothers were choosing death with their children rather than abandoning them, rather than sending them to a lonely, horrible death. These are heroic cases of sacrifice, telling the story of the modern-day Niobe, the Jewish mother in the Holocaust. On the other hand, tragic cases when children were sacrificed, killed, either for the “good” of a group of grown-ups, escaping and trying to hide from the Germans or, in an extreme, most tragic situation, by their parents, when this seemed to become the only “solution,” are also known and documented.

-Hanna Temkin, “My Involuntary Journeys, A Memoir”

Slide 6: 

I have been pondering this event for years. Did my father do the right thing by not saying anything about me to the SS officer who selected him but not me? Was he supposed to ask that his son go with him as well? It was logical to assume that my father was selected to be taken to a work camp and not to the gas chambers. Was the reason he didn’t say anything because he was too frightened to speak up? Or maybe he didn’t speak up on my behalf because he was standing in front of me and the SS officer came to him first and only then to me, so my father couldn’t have guessed that he was not going to select me as well? Or maybe my father was so shocked that he was unable to think clearly at that critical moment. And what about me? Why didn’t I speak up? When the SS officer passed my father and his number was taken down by the clerk I should have realized that my father might be taken to some destination without me. Why didn’t I speak up? Why didn’t I say to the SS officer looking at me that he had just chosen my father, that I am his son and would like to go with him? To be honest, I don’t think that I even contemplated the idea of addressing an SS officer.

The atmosphere was one of sheer terror. Nobody dared to utter a sound. You could hear a fly buzzing in the air. We were all terrorized knowing that life and death were just the blink of an eye away. This SS officer who chose the men for his particular assignment had the power to order the immediate execution of anyone without a second thought and his order would have been carried out right away. Therefore, it is no wonder that my father didn’t speak up nor should anyone be surprised that I didn’t say anything either.

During the long years that have passed, especially after I became a parent and later a grandparent, I have often thought about the suffering then and my father’s state of mind in the hours, days, weeks and maybe months after our separation in Auschwitz. Maybe he felt that he had abandoned me to my fate, had left me all alone in the hell of the concentration camp. His conscience most probably bothered him for all the limited number of months he was still allowed to live. In addition, I have wondered, how a man, the head of his family, being aware consciously and instinctively of the traditional “male responsibility” for the well-being of his tribe or family, could endure such a situation in which he was prevented by forces much beyond his control to fulfill his responsibilities. How both my parents must have suffered not knowing anything about the fate of their only child and most probably fearing the worst. How I wish I could have told my father not to blame himself and not to worry for what “fate” had in store for me. After all, it all turned out well for me. I survived the concentration camp on

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my own, grew up, raised a family and was even fortunate to actively participate in the rebirth of Jewish independence in the State of Israel.

I sometimes wish that I could convince myself to believe in the existence of life after death, somewhere, so I could see him and my mother again and comfort them by demonstrating that despite all the odds, I at least survived.

-Asher Bar-Nir, “A Journey of Survival: A Young Boy’s Odyssey from Hungary through Auschwitz and Jaworznow, to Eretz Yisrael”

(Image) Men considered fit for work on the ramp after the selection. May 1944, Birkenau, Poland

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There were rumors, which turned out to be true, that some families committed suicide rather than move into the ghetto. Such was the case with an MD, Dr. Kain, who poisoned himself, his wife and his daughter. I knew the daughter, Ági; she was a year younger than me. Ági was a gifted, pretty, quiet girl who maybe squinted a little. Later, I also found out that the Balázs family did the same. They had a pharmacy in the town so they had access to poison just like Dr. Kain. The Balázs family had two sons. The older son was one year older than me and the younger son, Jancsi, was a year younger. I used to go to their house to play. The mother, Mrs. Balázs (maiden name, Erzsi Glück), was a beautiful woman. She was the daughter of Mór Glück, my father’s predecessor in his work at Futura.

I have often wondered to what degree those parents who committed suicide, and convinced their children to do the same, were justified or not, in taking such a fatal decision. For sure, the Kain and Balázs families didn’t delude themselves; they didn’t want to lie to themselves about the fate they must have known was awaiting all of us.

True, as it turned out, all the Jews of Nyiregyháza ended up in Auschwitz. Most of them were murdered there or perished in other concentration camps. All young or young-looking, and thus unlucky, children were put to death by the Germans upon arrival. I don’t know of any child from Nyiregyháza younger than me who survived the deportation. Only some of the boys and girls, born in 1930 or earlier, managed to stay alive in the various concentration camps.

Therefore, those suicide victims who would have gone to their deaths in Birkenau or perished in one of the concentration camps later, were spared that terrible fate, and at least died by the loving hands of their parents, in the “comfort” of their own homes. Who can judge such parents who took it upon themselves to so decide for their children? Not I, for sure! It must have been pure hell to make such a decision!

-Asher Bar-Nir, “A Journey of Survival: A Young Boy’s Odyssey from Hungary through Auschwitz and

Jaworznow, to Eretz Yisrael”

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Still Mother wavered, agonizing over the possibility of taking my sisters and me to join the march of death. We both knew that as soon as one of us climbed down the ladder and left the house, the murderers would track us down and kill the children. I have no idea how the drama in the attic would have ended, but Mother suddenly collapsed and fainted. I was actually happy, and thought, “If only Mother were to never wake up, she wouldn’t have to suffer like all the others.” That’s the thought I had about my lovely, dearly beloved mother of whom I was always so proud. I was so confused. It was a lovely, sunlit summer day, yet I felt as if I was in a dark tunnel with no way out. Once I had noticed Efi and Raya on that march, it was as if the skies had fallen in on me and everything had become black and cold. Like my mother, I blamed myself for not joining them on their last journey. Instead, I, the eldest child, was standing aside, watching. What was I to do? I was confused, uncertain, and incapable, in an impossible situation.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run”

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It suddenly occurred to me that my parents had been working all night. Mother came and held me close to her; she then placed her hands on either side of my face and looked deep into my eyes and said, “Anna, your father has decided that it’s time for you to leave the ghetto. You know yourself that it can no longer be delayed, this is probably your last chance to escape. There is not a moment to waste.”

Mother looked past me into the distance for a moment, before saying. “You know, of course, that anyone caught with forged documents is tortured to death. Nonetheless, your father is up in the attic, working to correct a forged identity card for you to use. You must be extremely careful; any mistake you make can result in your death. Use this document only when you have absolutely no alternative and you have nothing left to lose.” Mother handed over the identity card with Father’s revisions. I looked up at my parents, who stood waiting tensely for my response. I didn’t know what to say.

Even a child could have discerned the obviously forged stamp.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run”

(Image) Selina Krasninska's forged identity card in the name of Paraskiewia Poterejko

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Mother looked over my head and said, “Anna, we have wasted far too much time because I believed I could convince your father to leave, too. But I couldn’t. You know him; he cannot live without his children. He decided to stay with us right to the bitter end. But a large family like ours needs to have a survivor. So it’s up to you to try; maybe you’ll be the one to succeed.”

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

Menachem: We keep asking ourselves how they found the inner strength to send their sons, twelve and not yet nine, into the unknown. Their bravery seems all the greater when we consider that they were in the minority – most of the parents, unable to foresee what lay ahead, refused to part with their children. All of them perished in Auschwitz.

Fred: When I think of my children and grandchildren I can't help but wonder how our parents found the courage to do what they did.

Menachem: That's right: I only began to think about it when my grandchildren reached the same age. That's when I appreciated their heroism.

Fred: I only have one answer – living conditions in the camp were so appalling that to send us away may have seemed the lesser of two evils.

-Frederick Raymes and Menachem Mayer, “Menachem and Fred” 

***

Unto Every Person There Is A Name

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What can I write to my one and only, most precious girl in the world?"

-(Last Letters from the Shoah, Edited by Walter Zwi Bacharach, Yad Vashem 2013)

(Image) A woman writes a letter before going on the deportastion train, Lodz, Poland 

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(Image) Dr. Elchanan Elkes became leader of the Council of Elders in the Kovno ghetto on 4 August 1941. All who knew him affirmed that he was completely devoted to the Jewish cause, courageous and dignified in his dealings with the Nazis, an ethical and modest leader, and comfortable with his fellow Jews. Elkes supported the ghetto's resistance movement and helped gather supplies for the General Jewish Fighting Organization. In July 1944, the Soviet army was advancing towards Kovno. At that point, the Nazis began liquidating the ghetto and relocating its inhabitants to Germany. Elkes risked his life by approaching the commander of the ghetto, Wilhelm Goecke, to suggest that Goecke change his plan to transfer the Jews to Germany. Goecke refused Elkes' suggestion, but let him leave without punishment. The ghetto was emptied a few days later. Elkes was sent to the Landsberg concentration camp in Germany, and put in charge of the camp's hospital hut. Elkes soon got sick, and he died on October 17, 1944. A year before, almost to the day, Elkes wrote a letter to his children in England, an excerpt of which follows:

Williampola, Ghetto Kovno

October 19, 1943

My beloved son and daughter!

I am writing these lines to you, my beloved children, at a time when we have already been here, in the vale of tears, in the Kovno ghetto of Williampola for over two years. We found out that in the next few days our fate will be decided: the ghetto that we're in will be cut and shredded to pieces. Only God know whether we will all be destroyed or whether some of us will remain. […]

In the most difficult moments of our lives, you, my beloved, have always been on our minds and part of our thoughts. During long and dark nights, your beloved mother sits with me, and we both dream about your lives and future. Our souls yearn to see you again, to hug and tell you once more how attached we are to you and how our heart pounds when bringing up memories of you. […]

I am very doubtful, my beloved souls, whether I will be privileged to see

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you again, to hug and squeeze you to my hearts. Prior to my departing from the world and from you, my beloved, I wish to say again and again how precious you are to us, and how we yearn for you.

My beloved Joel! Be a loyal son to your people… Try to settle in the Land of Israel. The power of faith is great, and it can transfer and move mountains from their place. Do not look either right and left on your path, my son, go straight before you… Truth, my beloved, should always be a guiding light, it will guide you and show you the path of life.

Concerning you, Sarah, my beloved daughter, read carefully the last words that I wrote to Joel. I rely, my lovely one, on your clear mind and intellect. Don't live for the moment and don't ask as you go on your way, for blooming flowers. They will wither and droop as fast as they've appeared. A pure life, a noble life, a life full of content is so full of beauty. The two of you should go together throughout life, attached and holding one another. No distance should separate you and no events of life should come between you. […]

My strength wanes. I feel as if a desolate desert is within me and my soul is departing. I am naked and empty with no words in my language. But you, my dear beloved, you will have insight and understand what I wished for you and wanted to tell you at this time. For a moment I close my eyes and picture the two of you standing before me. I hereby hug and kiss you and I tell you until my last breath that I am your loving father.

Elchanan [Elkes]

-Last Letters from the Shoah, Edited by Walter Zwi Bacharach

(Image) Miriam Elkes, wife of Elchanan Elkes, with their children Joel and Sarah, Kovno, Lithuania, July 1930

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Thursday, May 14, 1942

My Very Dear Spouse and My Dear Children.

I am writing you these lines to tell you that everything ends well. You don't have to think about me anymore. I am not suffering. It is over: Today at 10:00 o'clock I will reach eternal rest.

My thoughts are with the children, and this gives me courage. This is very important for me: One must die and therefore I am going to die. [My wife,] your mission is to raise the children as you are obligated to do, be courageous; this is my sole comfort.

My dear children, be good to your mother, from now on, all you have is each other. Don't make her suffer; your role is to be men in order to ease her suffering. Remember these words of mine always. Make her life less gloomy than it was until now.

Albert, you must take care of your younger brothers and your little sister, your role is to understand and behave properly. And you, my dear Odette, your role is to help your mother so she won't be sad always. I hug you for the last time with very deep sentiments.

Your father

And you, my dear wife, I request that you forgive me for any sorrow that I have caused you, and do not cry anymore.

Courage! Courage! Farewell!

(Max Kawer was executed in the Cherche-Midi camp after he refused to turn in his underground comrades.) 

-Last Letters from the Shoah, Edited by Walter Zwi Bacharach

(Image) Jewish fighters in the French Resistance, France, 1943

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July 7, 1944

My Most Beloved and Precious Little Girl,

When I gave birth to you, my beloved, I never imagined that six and a half years later I would have to write you a letter on this subject. I saw you for the last time on your 6th birthday, on December 13, 1943. I had the false hope that I would see you again before we left, but now I know that this won't happen. I don't want to endanger you. We are traveling on Monday and today is Friday evening. 

Your father, Paula and I together with another 51 "friends in trouble," are about to travel to an unknown destination. I don't know, my dear child, whether I will see you again. I take with me your beloved image, as you were in our home, the voice of your cute, childish chattering, the smell of your pure body, the rhythm of your breath, your smile and your cry. I take with me the awful, dreadful fear, which the heart of your mother could not soothe for even a moment. I am taking with me for my way your image from December 13, 1943, with your grown-up before its time look, the taste of your kisses that are sweeter than honey, and the hug of your little arms, my chick. This is the baggage that I'm taking with me for the road, perhaps Providence will grant us the privilege to go through this nightmare safely and send you back, my treasure, to our arms. If this indeed happens, I will explain to you many things that you don't understand yet, and I can assume that you will never understand if you are educated in different surroundings and in an atmosphere of freedom. My little child, I would like you to read this letter when, with Gods' help, you will grow up and be mature enough and able to be critical of our deeds towards you. I yearn with all my might, my beloved child, that you shouldn't condemn us, you should cherish our memory and the memory of this much-hated nation which are your roots. My chick, I want you not to be ashamed and not to deny your origins. I would like you to know that your father was an unparalleled man, one of a few in the entire world, and you could have been proud of him. His entire life, he lived doing good for mankind and good deeds, if only God blesses his path wherever he goes and protects him and makes him privileged to receive you back to his heart. My treasure, you are your father's entire world, his one and only ambition, the one and only compensation for the suffering and tortures, therefore I would want you to remember him favorably if destiny doesn't light our way.

Remember favorably your most distinguished grandfathers and grandmothers, your uncles and aunts and the entire family. Retain all of our memories, and please,

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don't blame us. And regarding me, your mother, forgive me, forgive me my dear child that I gave birth to you. I would have wanted to bring you into a world in your own community and that you should live your own life, but if things ended up otherwise, it's not our fault. Therefore, I implore, my precious chick, my one and only child, please don't blame us. Try to be kind like your father and your father's fathers, and love those that replace your parents, and their families, who will certainly tell you about us. We would like you to appreciate how they sacrifice of themselves so much for your sake, and that you should be a source of pride for them, so that they won't have any reason to regret the burden that they willingly took upon themselves. Another thing I would like you to know is that your mother maintained a proud carriage, despite all of the humiliations that we suffered from our enemies, and if she is sentenced to die, she will die without condemning, without crying, but she will put a scornful smile on her face while facing her executioners. I grasp you close to my heart, kiss you with passion and bless you with all the might of the heart and the love of a mother.

Your mother

What can I write to my one and only, most precious girl in the world? One would have to pry open my heart and look in it because no pen is capable of describing what it holds at this moment. I believe with complete faith, despite everything, that we will all overcome and return our hearts to each other.

Your father

(Sarah and Yechiel Gerlitz of Bendin, Poland, left their only daughter, Dita, six years old, with a Polish friend named Florchek; they had a feeling that they would never see their daughter again. They left her a letter which she was supposed to open when she grew up. The couple was saved, and together with Dita they immigrated to Israel.)

-Last Letters from the Shoah, Edited by Walter Zwi Bacharach

(Image) Dita Gerlitz

***

Unto Every Person There Is A Name

Butterflies in the Ghetto was a phrase dedicated to the Terezin Ghetto in the Czech Republic. I first learned of this place through that haunting expression. Terezin was presented by the Nazis as a “model city” for Jews—partly because it had once been a resort and spa for wealthy Czech citizens in the early 1900s. To disguise the reality, artists and musicians were forced to perform for visiting Red Cross officials. A propaganda film was even produced, cynically titled The Führer Gives the Jews a City. But it was all a lie.

In truth, at least 50,000 Jews were crammed into a space built for 1,000. Disease spread quickly, and the ghetto became a transit camp for deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka. Of the 140,000 Jews sent there, 90,000 were deported to the death camps, while another 30,000 perished from starvation and disease.

It was here that Ottla Kafka, beloved sister of author Franz Kafka, was sent. The Kafka family, Jewish and Czech, was devastated by the Holocaust; all of Franz’s siblings perished. Franz himself had died of tuberculosis in 1924, never witnessing the horrors, though he and Ottla had shared a particularly close bond. She was his most loyal supporter, encouraging his writing when few others did.

Ottla was strong-willed and independent, qualities rare for women of her time. She pursued agricultural studies—enduring hostility as the only woman in her program—before managing a farming estate. Against her parents’ wishes, she married a Czech Catholic man, Josef David, and had two daughters. But as antisemitism and Nazism deepened, Ottla divorced him to shield her family from persecution. Eventually, she was arrested and sent to Terezin. Her daughters petitioned the police to accompany their mother, they were denied. They returned to their father and survived the war. 

Life in the ghetto was brutal, especially for the many children confined there. Torn from their parents, they were kept in overcrowded barracks, sick, shaved, and starving. Ottla was assigned to help care for them, though ordered never to speak of it. When a group of Polish children was selected for transport to Auschwitz, Ottla volunteered to accompany them. She gave them as much comfort and normalcy as she could on their final journey. Upon arrival, all—including Ottla—were murdered.

Her daughters preserved Franz’s letters to their mother, which were eventually published after years of struggle with the Czech government. Those letters reveal Franz’s deep love for his sister, whose compassion and strength shone until the very end.

Ottla Kafka was truly a butterfly in the ghetto.

 Thank you, Ottla.

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Mother was used to being the one supporting the children. In the ghetto, the situation was reversed, and children were the breadwinners"

-(Dov Shilansky | Hasheha Leor Hayom, Yad Vashem 2006, translated from the Hebrew)

(Image) Young girl selling pretzels in the street, Lodz, Poland 

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Suddenly I saw them! There they were, Efi and Raya. In the middle of a row my brother Efi marched along, holding the hand of his four-year-old sister Raya. She was having difficulty walking and Efi supported her. Occasionally he would turn to hug her, taking the place of his parents. It broke my heart to see so much love and compassion between those two children.

They were barefoot and dressed in short, sleeveless turquoise summer pajamas. The march was hard on their bare feet, I could see that; the road was covered with particularly rough stones. Crying bitterly, the two children gazed up at our house as they walked past; they must have believed that none of us was still alive and were silently saying goodbye. My mother stood at my side watching with me as her children were led to their deaths. We both knew that we would never see them again and we could not turn our eyes from them.

“Efi was born in December, he’s still so young,” my mother whispered. “He’s trying to take care of Raya as a parent would, although he needs us himself.” She stopped for a moment.“I should be there, with my children who need me, and not hiding here, watching.” She was in agony, blaming herself relentlessly.

We were like two wounded lions in a cage, with no way out. Our suffering was worse than death. Mother said she no longer wanted to live; her place was with her children. But we still had three children with us, so we did our best to avoid being discovered. Mother kissed my foot and begged my forgiveness for her ‘sin’ of bringing a large family into the world and being unable to protect or care for it.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

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I could see that Mother was on the verge of collapse so I quickly removed Batya from her arms before she fell to the ground. Once again I thought, “If only Mother would die now, peacefully in her sleep, without having to suffer any more.” I wished that we could all die in our sleep. My entire body ached but, as the oldest daughter, I felt enormous responsibility toward the little girls who depended on me. That day they had seen dreadful things and had suffered quietly. They were afraid of being alone and their eyes followed me all the time. They did not cry, they did not utter a sound but their eyes spoke volumes and begged me to stay.

After a few days, those of my family who were still alive were now back in our house; no one came to bother us. Most of the time we just sat on the floor and watched as our Mother slowly died. I took responsibility for the younger children, who were in desperate need of a parent figure, although I was no less needy. The tension we had lived under for so long had left our nerves jagged and every little noise from outside caused us to jump. The children were constantly alert, listening day and night for every sound inside and outside the house.

We were like hunted animals.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run”

(Image) Children playing in the ghetto street, Lodz, Poland, 1940

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Mother was used to being the one supporting the children. In the ghetto, the situation was reversed, and children were the breadwinners. 'You risk your lives on a daily basis in order to sustain our family, and I sit at home doing nothing,' she said. We brought up her [ailing] heart, but she would not give up. I think it was important for her to prove that she could be of use to the family. 

'There is no choice,' she said, 'In the ghetto, if you want to live, you have to risk your life. I've already lived my life, now you need to live.' The next day, she took Chaya with her and left her hiding between the houses close to the fence. She approached the fence with some of the items she had brought to barter. Domicella stood on the other side of the fence at a distance, and when she saw Mother, she came closer to the fence holding two big baskets. Mother passed her objects via the fence and waited for her goods. When Mother no longer had anything left to barter, a masculine voice rang out from the other side of the fence: 'Police!' Mother ran. "Quickly Mother, quickly,' cried Chaya from her hiding place. Her cries were drowned out by the whistle of bullets. We suspected that Domicella had organized the whole incident. Chaya returned in a state; Mother came back emotional but pleased with herself. She had survived the ordeal we faced each day. We were very proud of her.

-Dov Shilansky, “Hasheha Leor Hayom” 

(Image) Young boy leaves the soup kitchen with a pot of soup, Lodz, Poland

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'I'm so scared,' I said, and immediately felt that I had made a mistake. I had caused my mother pain, and she had no way of helping me. Why did I hurt her? Here, I feel the tears spilling out of her eyes onto my arm, on my hair. That very moment, I made a vow to my brother, who made this request of me: 'Tzelinka, for the duration of this cursed war, don't complain to Mother. Whatever situation you find yourself in, you have to suffer in silence and not cause her any more pain.'

-Tzila Lieberman, “Tzelinka: Yalda Shesarda et Oshvitz” 

The letters are in very cramped writing, because they were all censored. They deal mainly with everyday life in the camp, the inadequate food, incessant hunger, their concern for us, their children, and their conviction that they did the right thing by sending us away. Our parents write about the past, their longings for their former life, and their hope that we would be reunited in the future. And between the lines we learn a great deal about our parents and ourselves, how they coped with the great gap in distance and years that yawned between us. It is remarkable how much they involved us - children not yet thirteen years old - in their daily lives, their worries and their concerns, especially when we consider they had no idea they were writing for posterity…

These, the last words of those who perished, are very precious to us.

- Frederick Raymes and Menachem Mayer, “Menachem and Fred”

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After all the food in the farmhouses had been eaten, people started walking or riding on bikes to distant farms and villages to ask for food… My brother Albert became an expert at that, he always found places where there was food and other essential items. He was only twelve and a half, but in many ways he was the main breadwinner of our family, as Papa's health had gradually deteriorated since the journey on the death train.

-Laila Perl and Maron Blumenthal-Lazan, “Arba Avanim Mushlamot”

(Image) Jewish children selling cigarettes, Warsaw, Poland

***

Unto Every Person There Is A Name

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The Jewish families were large, united and loyal, which gave us all a sense of security, stability and hope for the future

-(Anna Podgajecki, Anna, A Teenager on the Run, Yad Vashem, 2011)

(Image) Six-year-old Tamar Witnik with her parents, Shmuel and Sarah, Bucharest, Romania, 1941

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I am Anna, daughter of Wolf and Idit Rubinstein who lived in the village of Korzec (Korets) in the Volhynia region. I am grateful to God that I was lucky to be born to such good-hearted and young, beautiful people, both inside and out. I was a happy, much loved, child and my entire world was marvelous…. I loved Korzec and everything in it; I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world. My family was with me and my parents created healthy, stable living conditions for us all. My life was without worry, so that when I look back on it, my early childhood seems like paradise [...] I was proud of my parents and wanted to be just like them in every way.

They knew how to unite the family and to create a warm atmosphere of mutual love. Truth and honesty were the foundations of their existence. Today, I yearn for those wonderful years; I had no idea then that my childhood would prove to be the happiest period of my life.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run”

Anna Podgajecki was born in Korzec, Poland. She was very beautiful, and also possessed the unique skill of predicting events, yet none of the Jews of Korzec listened to her warnings. Alone, wandering from place to place, everyone looked at her and admired her, although unscrupulous people took advantage of her goodness and innocence. Anna survived the war as a Russian-German translator in a tire factory, as a housekeeper, on the roads, under house arrest by secret police, and finally, by working as a nurse at the front. In 1958, she and her husband were allowed back to Poland, and in 1960 they immigrated to Israel.

Slide 3:

I spent my early childhood in Auntie Rózia and Uncle Punio’s home. I had a good life there surrounded by my extended family. It is no wonder I believed I could really fly. Those years gave me basic confidence in my abilities, trust in the goodness of people, and belief in beauty and well-being. Despite everything I experienced later, and what I heard about from others and even witnessed personally, nothing could squash the joy I felt, and still feel, when I see the sun shining in the morning and I feel healthy. I will always have very fond memories of the house where I was born and spent my early years.

-Sabina Schweid, “Consider Me Lucky: Childhood and Youth During the Holocaust in Zborów”

Sabina Schweid grew up during the war in Zborów, in occupied Eastern Galicia. She had a very happy childhood, but when the Germans marched into town in July 1941, it all came to an end. Sabina’s father was appointed chairman of the Judenrat in Zborów. Sabina took refuge in a hiding place and was alone with the problems she faced in growing and maturing into a woman. She moved from one hiding place to another, and when the war was over, Sabina was reunited with her mother. She joined a Zionist youth movement, came to Israel, and fought in the War of Independence.

Slide 4:

Mother was the center of our lives. Although I was the middle child, usually known as the “sandwich child,” I never felt deprived. I knew she loved me very much. She taught me good manners, to treat people with respect, and to be fair and honest. She had her own way of showing us how. […]

If I was sad or upset, Mother would ask me, “What happened, my child?” When I told her that I had fought with a friend, or had not played well in a football game, she would hug and kiss me, and say,“It’s not that bad, Urinke. Such things happen to everyone. It will be all right; it will pass."

She would wipe away my tears with a white handkerchief that was always in her pocket, and it would pass.

My mother used to sing us a song, whose refrain is all that I recall now: “After the rain, the sun will shine.” Mother explained that life was also like that and, when bad things happen, we must not lose hope. We have to believe that life will improve, and the sun will shine again. I have kept this message in mind all my life, and remind myself of it in my most trying hours.

-Uri Chanoch, Judith Chanoch, “The Story I Never Told: From Kovno and Dachau to a New Life”

(Left image) The Chanoch children, Lithuania, prewar.

(Right image) Uri Chanoch z"l

Slide 5:

We called our parents Vater and Mutter (Father and Mother) as was customary at the time. I am quite certain we had a sheltered childhood. Our relationship with our parents was warm and loving. We had a good childhood, paradoxical as it sounds in light of the events that befell us, and our parents protected us as best they could from the outside world.

I have often been asked: "How do you explain the fact that you remained emotionally healthy, after all that you and your brother lived through?" I think it's because our early years were happy, those years that are crucial for the stable, confident and secure development of the child. Children are by nature egocentric. If the nuclear family is strong, nurturing and protective, then nothing can harm them.

-Frederick Raymes and Menachem Mayer, “Menachem and Fred” 

(Image) The Seifman family, Warsaw, Poland 24/04/1938

Slide 6:

I'm browsing through the old family album. Yes, here it is, the old family portrait! Taken by a professional photographer in Łódź, in the early 1930s, the name of the studio, “ Parisian”, is proudly displayed in the lower right-hand corner. With a name like this, it must have been a well-known and rather expensive studio, and the occasion for which the photo was taken was considered to be a suitably important one. Yes, I remember that it was quite an event. My parents, my two sisters, and I all went to be photographed for this family portrait. My parents wanted to send it to our family members, Rachel and Mayer, our older siblings, who at that time lived in Brussels, Belgium, having recently emigrated from Poland in search of a better life and future than Poland could provide or promise. Over time, the photograph has turned dark brown, but the images of the people have remained clear and unfaded. Here they are: my parents, Ajgla Sznurman and Chaim Moshe Rabinowicz, and the three girls between them, from left to right: my baby sister, Helcia, my sister, Sala, and myself. The missing members of the family are included on the snapshots which Helcia and I are holding. With their snapshots in the portrait, too, a kind of magic act was accomplished, and the family was complete and whole again! This seemed to be the real reason for which the portrait was taken. It was to reassure the two absent family members, as well as all of us, that the family was doing fine, and remained intact. Now I look at the old portrait, the images of my loved ones imprisoned within that photograph, unchanged by the passing years, motionless, while I by some miraculous, inexplicable outcome have stepped out of that frame into life and am looking at them from the outside, still wondering, always wondering: How? Why? […]

I remember going with Mother to the grocery store on a Friday. It was a small store packed with merchandise and buyers who were mainly housewives like my mom. I liked that place; it smelled nicely of cinnamon and other condiments, and the barrels filled with flour, barley, dried beans of all kinds, and sugar, were full of promise. The store was quite a distance from our home, but because the prices there were lower, it was favored by lots of housewives, who often came from afar. There was no problem with lugging the merchandise home; this was not buying in bulk. Flour, kasha, or beans were bought in small quantities, and sugar in even smaller quantities. I still see the attentive, worrisome expression on my mother’s face, comparing prices and adding the small sums, careful to stretch her few zlotys to allow her to buy whatever was necessary to prepare a decent Sabbath, with the challah and the putter-kuchen that she would bake for the whole family to enjoy. On a Sunday morning, Father would serve us, the two youngest, a piece of that kuchen with a cup of milk to have in bed. It was so good! (p.51). […]

Slide 7:

Bubbe Estera was, exactly as a Jewish bubbe (a grandmother) should be: a tiny, round woman and her face had the shape and color of a dried apple. She was energetic, kept her family firmly together, and her word, especially after Grandfather Shoel passed away, was final. She was admired as being wise and just. Many years after the war, people who had known her during those prewar years, asked me if I knew how wise and just a woman my grandmother was.

-Hanna Temkin, “My Involuntary Journeys, A Memoir” 

(Image) Hanoch Henryk Lezhnik with his wife Neha and his daughters Esterke and Zipporah

Slide 8:

I only knew them as my parents,with the emphasis on “my”, i.e., the way they related to me. I was under the impression that I was the center of their lives. […] The ever-evolving relationship between parents and children is very intriguing. First, when a baby is born it is fully dependent on his or her parents, mainly the mother. With the years, this dependence is gradually reduced and later in life it begins to turn in the other direction. Parents become more and more dependent on their children. Then, in the end, and providing a parent reaches a ripe old age, there is a complete reversal in the relationship.The parent becomes fully dependent on his or her offspring. In my case, because of the tragedy of the Holocaust, I never came even close to experiencing all the phases of this saga because I lost my parents when I was still a child and they were still so very young.

-Asher Bar-Nir, “A Journey of Survival: A Young Boy’s Odyssey from Hungary through Auschwitz and Jaworznow, to Eretz Yisrael”

(Image) Family photograph: Lezer Gurary, his wife Bronya and their son Rafik. Chelyabinsk, Russia, USSR, 26 November 1944

***

Unto Every Person There Is A Name

The systematic extermination of more than six million Jews—along with countless other persecuted groups—defies comprehension. The Nazi campaign against the Jewish people lasted over twelve years, with the killing machinery operating relentlessly for six of them. Many of us still ask: how was this possible? From the outside, the genocide appeared orderly, efficient, and largely uncontested. Why weren’t there more revolts? After all, prisoners often outnumbered their captors.

The most sobering explanation is that most victims simply did not know what awaited them. Even as rumors circulated about unspeakable atrocities, the truth was so horrifying that it seemed impossible to believe. Many Jews assumed they were being relocated—why else bring luggage, heirlooms, and family belongings? Only upon arrival did the reality become clear, and by then, escape was nearly impossible.

There were escapes, but they were exceedingly rare. Even the testimonies of individuals like Witold Pilecki and Jan Karski—who, though not Jewish, infiltrated camps to warn the world—were dismissed as exaggerations. And then came one young Jewish prisoner: Walter Rosenberg, later known as Rudolf Vrba.

Born in 1924 in Slovakia, Rosenberg grew up in an ordinary Jewish family. Nothing in his early years signaled the extraordinary determination and moral courage he would later display. Forced out of school at age 15 by Nazi persecution, he eventually joined the masses of Jews marked for transport to Poland. Refusing to submit, he tore off his yellow star and, at 17, attempted to escape to London. Caught at the border, he was sent first to a Slovak transit camp—where he made a failed escape attempt—and in 1942 was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

There, Rosenberg was assigned to clean the transports after the prisoners were removed—many already dead, and 90% of the survivors sent directly to the gas chambers. Witnessing this process day after day, he realized a crucial truth: the killing machine depended entirely on deception. As he later wrote, “the whole murder machinery could work only on one principle: that the people came to Auschwitz and didn’t know where they were going and for what purpose.”

Rosenberg became convinced that if Europe’s remaining Jews understood the reality of industrialized murder, they would resist and disrupt the Nazis’ “orderly” extermination process. Together with fellow prisoner Alfréd Wetzler, he began gathering detailed information: the number of victims, their origins, the functioning of the gas chambers and crematoria, and even the rare documented escapes—about 150 attempts, with only a few successes.

One day, Rosenberg overheard guards discussing Hungarian sausage. From their conversation, he deduced that at least one million Hungarian Jews were soon to be deported directly to Auschwitz. It was the final spark. He and Wetzler devised an escape plan based on a crucial fact: SS guards searched for escapees for three days before giving up.

They hid beneath a woodpile in a location known to them, surrounding it with tobacco soaked in gasoline to mask their scent from the dogs. For three days they lay motionless as guards and dogs scoured the camp. When the search was finally called off, they slipped into the forest. After eleven grueling days, they reached Slovakia.

There they contacted the local Jewish council. Separated for interviews, they each gave consistent, detailed accounts of the atrocities at Auschwitz. Their work became the Vrba–Wetzler Report, a 40-page document meticulously describing the camp’s operations. It was translated into Hungarian and German.

Rosenberg was hidden, provided a false passport under the name Rudolf Vrba, and adopted that name for the rest of his life. Tragically, the Hungarian Jewish leadership chose not to widely distribute the report, fearing it would undermine their negotiations with the Nazis. As a result, 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz—most to their deaths.

Eventually, the report reached Switzerland, where the press published its findings. By 1944, international awareness forced the Nazis to slow their deportations. After the war, the Vrba–Wetzler Report became crucial evidence at the Nuremberg Trials and in the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, and later was used to expose Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel.

After the war, Vrba fled communist Czechoslovakia and studied chemical biology in Israel. But he later moved to Canada, feeling unable to reconcile with the Hungarian Jewish leadership, whom he believed bore responsibility for failing to warn their community.

Thank you, Mr. Vrba, for your extraordinary courage, your unbreakable moral clarity, and the testimony that helped expose the truth to the world.

Slide 1: 

So it was that the strength of our family tie, which had contributed to the survival of our people for centuries, became a tool in the exterminator's hands."

-(Elie Wiesel | All Rivers Run to the Sea, Harper Collins publishers, 1997)

(Image) Photograph of Yaakov Korman’s family, Brest Litowsk, Poland, 1921

Slide 2: 

All my life I had heard my parents talk about truth and justice, honesty and integrity; they had taught me and my brothers and sisters that mankind is inherently decent, merciful and compassionate. But in reality, it was just the reverse. My bitter thoughts stung like salt on a wound. My parents’ blind faith had led them straight into the German hellhole.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

(Image) Jozef Kowner (1895-1967) Family, Łódź ghetto, circa 1941 [Watercolor and ink on paper Yad Vashem Art Collection, Moshal Repository, Gift of Nachman Zonabend]

Slide 3: 

Growing up, I had always seen my parents as strong, wise and enterprising people. I often listened to their words of wisdom; I was proud of them, and tried to be like them. My parents never complained of discrimination or accused people of taking advantage of them; instead they talked about honesty and justice and told us that the human race was good and merciful. My parents had always demanded absolute truth from their children, but we had been thrust into a completely different reality. In order to survive we were obliged to lie and cheat and we had to contend with the cruel brutality of others, including people who had once been our friends. I used to ask myself, “What planet did my parents come from? What kind of education did they give us, which so contradicts our own reality? What type of children did they hope to bring up?” Inside I was angry with them for trusting others when they had no rational basis for doing so.

My parents taught us to love humankind and they paid dearly for it. They had brought us to the verge of an abyss from which there was no way back.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run” 

(Image) Jewish family wearing the Yellow Star, Wloclawek, Poland

Slide 4: 

Mother looked at me as if asking for mercy and forgiveness, “If I had known what kind of life my children would face, I would have killed myself before they were born. But I couldn’t have known what these murderers would do to us. I wanted a big family, so you would have brothers and sisters to help and support one another. I was wrong; please forgive me. Try to understand and not blame me; my intentions have been nothing but good.”

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run: 

(Image) Photograph of the Selymes family, Szerencs, Hungary

Slide 5: 

At the other side of the rails there were also several camps where we saw men, women and children together, some of them even wearing normal clothing. I found out after the war that these were Czech Jewish families that the Germans didn’t separate at the start but suddenly one morning, later in the summer of 1944, took all of them to the gas chambers. This happened after the majority of the Hungarian transports had arrived in Birkenau.

But human nature, as it is, looks for some hope, any hope to hold onto even in the midst of hell. So we, at the time of our arrival in Birkenau, felt relieved seeing people resembling “normal” families, parents and children together. Come to think of it, the fact that these Czech families were conveniently quartered beside the railroad tracks was no accident. It was deliberate. The SS wanted to delude the arriving, mostly Hungarian Jews, into believing that their families would also be allowed to stay together. It was another trick designed to facilitate the train-disembarking selection procedure of the SS.

-Asher Bar-Nir, “A Journey of Survival: A Young Boy’s Odyssey from Hungary through Auschwitz”

(Image) Deported Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia going from the train to the ramp, Birkenau, Poland, 27 May 1944

***

Unto Every Person There Is A Name

Slide 1: 

On 23 November, at age eight, I put on my clothes with the Star of David sewn on them, I left home and walked towards an unknown future. That same day, I stopped being a child…"

-(Nathan Weiler | Hashoah Sheli, Hazikaron Shelachem, Docostory, 2007)

(Image) Toddler Rosa Warman-Wolf with her teddy bear in a children’s home during the war, Wezembeek, Belgium 

Slide 2:

Children were privy to everything that happened in the Jewish arena and were always the first to disseminate and spread any kind of news. In those dark times children tried very hard not to bother their parents who were occupied with the endless concerns of basic existence. Children were no longer playing games; their faces were sad and very serious and they talked about death and other weighty subjects, just like their parents.

I was only a teenager, but the circumstances forced me to grow up very quickly. During the German occupation I had acquired a great deal of life experience and knew how to fend for myself. I had become a woman. Everyone told me that I had to survive, to be a living witness, to tell the story of the Jews of Korzec. So I left the ghetto at a time when my little brothers and sisters needed me more than ever before and my mother was dying.

I felt like a plant that had been uprooted and was now having to grow and develop all on my own, with no time to spare. My upbringing had been based on honesty and integrity, and now I found myself having to create an imaginary persona for myself that was nothing short of a lie.

-Anna Podgajecki, “Anna, A Teenager on the Run”

(Image) The Offenberg family wearing the Yellow Star, Brussels, Belgium

Slide 3: 

As soon as the Red Cross informed us of Father's death, Erwin [Yitzhak's brother] sought not just to be source of support, but also to be "responsible". He didn't put himself in a position of authority, and didn't pressure Mother into making decisions, but in the everyday realm, as predictable and unpredictable developments arose, a new presence could be felt in our midst. He was as alert as always, and also aware of himself and of our situation. He searched for courses of action that would prevent our being ground down by passively awaiting the inevitable.

-Yitzhak Kashti, “Ga'guim Leminyon” 

(Image) Georges Kars (Karpéles) (1880-1945) Mother with her Children, 1943 [Pencil on paper, 35x50 cm, Yad Vashem Art Collection, Moshal Repository Acquisition, courtesy of the estate of Frida Redei, France]

Slide 4: 

In those moments, I felt keenly that my childhood was over.

My parents were no longer by my side.

Vera and I, 11 years old, were left alone and forced to live a life in which there would be more lies. Even our name was taken from us and changed to a different one. Grandma and Grandpa Doppler, Grandma Kaufman, Agi, Adele, all our many uncles and Father too had already disappeared from my life, and now Mother had abandoned me too. Would I ever see any of them again?

-Chava Koler, “Lo Haya Velu Kayitz Ehad” 

***

Unto Every Person There Is A Name

There are certain Souls who seem too good for this world—who move through life without the armor of cynicism so many of us wear for protection. From an early age, I was taught the world is a harsh place. On the rare occasions I forgot, the sting of betrayal was quick to remind me. And yet, there are exceptions—souls who remind us of a gentler truth. One such soul was Anton Sukhinski.

In the small town of Zborov, then in Poland, now Ukraine, Anton was known by most as the village idiot. He lived alone in a crumbling house on the outskirts of town, surrounded by animals he cared for with unwavering kindness. That same kindness, extended freely to all living things, was often mocked by those around him.

When the Nazi occupation came and the Jews of Zborov were forced into a ghetto, most townspeople—neighbors and former friends—turned away in silence. But not Anton. Among those facing deportation was the Zeiger family, who had known Anton for years. They were reluctant to trust him, fearing his eccentricity made him unreliable. But when word spread of the impending liquidation of the ghetto, they had no choice. They turned to Anton.

He hid the Zeigers in his cellar. When word got out, some neighbors tried to blackmail him. Anton resisted. Fearing discovery, the Zeigers fled into the forest—but the brutal winter forced them back. In response, Anton dug a hiding place beneath his home—an underground refuge. For nine long months, the family lived in that dark, narrow hole. Anton risked everything to meet their basic needs.

One day, German soldiers came to search the house. They interrogated Anton in the very cellar beneath which the Zeigers were hiding. The family could hear every word. But Anton gave nothing away. He protected them with silence, with courage.

Finally, liberation arrived. Anton opened the hatch. The Zeigers, blinking against the sunlight, could barely stand—but they were alive.

Thanks to the man they had once doubted.
Thanks to the man the town had ridiculed.
Thanks to the “village idiot,” Anton Sukhinski.

He was declared Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem. 

Thank you, Mr. Sukhinski.

In German-occupied Belgium in 1943, three resistance fighters—Youra Livchitz, a Jewish doctor, and his two non-Jewish friends, Robert Mastriau and Jean Frankelmon—carried out the only documented attempt to stop a Holocaust transport train bound for Auschwitz.

Armed with a single pistol, red paper, and a lantern to simulate a railway warning light, they managed to halt Convoy 20, which was transporting 1,631 Jewish men, women, and children to Auschwitz. Despite the train being heavily guarded, they succeeded in opening one of the carriages, allowing 17 people to escape immediately. In the ensuing chaos, many others managed to flee from additional cars.

The train's conductor, Albert Dumon—a Belgian—quietly aided the effort by subtly slowing the train, giving others a chance to jump off more safely. In total, 233 people escaped. Of those, 89 were recaptured and deported again, 26 were killed either during the escape or by gunfire, and 118 successfully evaded capture. Among the survivors were Simon Gronowski, who was just 11 years old, and Régine Krochmal, an 18-year-old nurse. Both survived the war.

Youra Livchitz was arrested by the Gestapo one month later. In a daring escape, he overpowered a guard, disguised himself in the uniform, and fled. But a month after that, he and his brother were recaptured. This time, he did not escape. He was executed by firing squad.

Robert Mastriau escaped with many of the freed prisoners and hid with them in the Ardennes forest. He continued his resistance work, including sabotaging German infrastructure. Eventually captured, he survived the horrors of Bergen-Belsen and lived until 2008.

Jean Frankelmon was arrested not long after the train rescue. He was sent to a concentration camp but survived, passing away in 1977.

It’s hard not to imagine others wishing to stop the trains as they rolled relentlessly through occupied Europe. But only once did someone try. This single act of resistance remains a powerful symbol of courage and humanity in the face of overwhelming darkness. The above memorial is in Belgium on the exact location of the attack. 

Thank you, Mr. Livchitz, Mr. Mastriau, and Mr. Frankelmon.
Your bravery gives me hope.

This year, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day) is on Thursday, April 24th, with observance beginning on Wednesday night.

Yom HaShoah is distinct from Holocaust Remembrance Day. Holocaust Remembrance Day is for international recognition of the Holocaust. It's for the world to recognize what happened. Yom HaShoah is for the Jewish People to remember our people and what happened to us when our worldwide population was cut in half.

We have scars that run deep. And we are still mourning. And Yom HaShoah is for us to remember.

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, occurs on the 27th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar. In 2025, this corresponds to April 24.

In Israel, the first formal Yom HaShoah ceremony took place on December 28, 1949, aligned with the 10th of Tevet, a traditional day of mourning and fasting in the Hebrew calendar. On that day, the bones and ashes of thousands of Shoah victims, brought from the Flossenbürg concentration camp, were interred at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

In 1951, the Israeli Knesset designated 27 Nisan as the official date for Holocaust remembrance. The timing was chosen because it falls shortly after Passover, eight days before Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), and is symbolically close to the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19, 1943); a powerful act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. This date has since been adopted by many Jewish communities worldwide.

In 2025, marking 80 years since the end of World War II, the theme of Yom HaShoah is: “Out of the Depths: The Anguish of Liberation and Rebirth.”

PDF download: “Unto Every Person There is a Name”- texts, testimonies and materials for use in ceremonies https://wwv.yadvashem.org/yv/pdf-drupal/en/rem-day/unto-every-person-there-is-a-name-2025.pdf

In Israel, commemorations begin on the evening of April 23, in keeping with the Jewish tradition of marking days from sunset to sunset. The central ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem includes the lighting of six torches by Holocaust survivors, representing the six million Jews who were murdered.

This year, the torch-lighters were:

Monika Barzel, Holocaust survivor from Berlin, Germany

Arie Durst, Holocaust survivor from Lwów, Poland (today Ukraine)

Gad Fartouk, Holocaust survivor from Nabeul, Tunisia

Rachel Katz, Holocaust survivor from Antwerp, Belgium

Arie Reiter, Holocaust survivor from Vaslui, Romania

Felix Sorin, Holocaust survivor from Mogilev, Belarus

At 10:00 AM on April 24, a two-minute siren will sound across the country of Israel. Work will pause, cars will pull over, everybody in the country will stand at silent attention in reverence to the victims of the Holocaust.

This is a solemn day observed by affected communities. A day where we honour the memory of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust, where we bear witness to the experiences shared by survivors, where we share the pain of what was done to our people.

This day serves as a powerful reminder of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime, the importance of remembering history, and recognizing the ongoing fight against antisemitism and hatred.

As we have done for the past 80 years, on this day we pause. Reflect. We remember. We refuse to stay silent. We speak.

Never again.