Commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day

Calling it one of the most important events in Jewish history, Rabbi Steven Graber, the spiritual leader of Temple Hillel in North Woodmere, listed two other reasons why the Holocaust should be remembered.
“Because it had such a negative effect on so many individuals and the world has not gotten any better; genocides are occurring in many areas of the world that makes it important to remember as a way to work toward it never happening again,” said Graber, He added that even today survivors have special needs that arose out of the time they spent in concentration camps.
Holocaust Remembrance Day was commemorated this year on Wednesday and Thursday. It is observed in the U.S., Israel and many Jewish communities throughout the world. The U.S. Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust, when about 13 million people, including six million Jews were killed during World War II, mostly in Nazi concentration camps. The Week of Remembrance runs from the Sunday before Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah, through the following Sunday. Annually state and local governments, military bases, workplaces, schools, religious organizations and civic centers host observances.
The date of the day relates to the Warsaw ghetto uprising and Israeli Independence Day. The revolt by Warsaw residents began on April 19, 1943. It was crushed by the German less than a month later. Israeli Independence Day dates from 1948 when the Jewish state was established, which is typically celebrated a week later than Holocaust Remembrance Day. There is also an International Holocaust Remembrance Day that is observed in January.
Hewlett resident and Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan, who wrote a book about her experiences “The Four Pebbles,” travels around the country and the world to enlighten young people and adults about the historic tragedy. “I do it simply because I want to see a kinder, more peaceful world for my children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren, and all succeeding generations.”