Yom HaShoah
07/04/2021 | Na stronie od 07/04/2021
October 16, 1941, A mother and her children before their execution in Lubny, Ukraine
Yom HaShoah's Origins
Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, occurs on the 27th of the Hebrew month of Nisan. Shoah, which means “catastrophe” or “utter destruction” in Hebrew, refers to the atrocities that were committed against the Jewish people during World War II. This is a memorial day for those who died in the Shoah. The Shoah is also known as the Holocaust, from a Greek word meaning "sacrifice by fire."
The Holocaust was the largest manifestation of antisemitism in recent history. Yom HaShoah reminds us of the horrors that Jews and other persecuted groups faced: forced labor, starvation, humiliation, and torture, which often resulted in death. It was a systematic effort to wipe out an entire population from the face of the earth.
Many commemorate Yom HaShoah by lighting yellow candles to keep alive the memories of the victims. Most synagogues and Jewish communities gather together to mark the day through worship, music and the stories from survivors. Find a congregation near you to attend a Yom HaShoah commemoration event.
Live Broadcast of Holocaust Remembrance Day Opening Ceremony 2021
Until the Very Last Jew: Eighty Years Since the Onset of Mass Annihilation
The central state ceremony, marking the start of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day in Israel, will be held at Yad Vashem on Wednesday night, April 7th at 20:00. The ceremony will be held in the presence of the President of the State of Israel and the Prime Minister, dignitaries and Holocaust survivors.
The Central Themes for Holocaust Remembrance Day Through the Years
Torchlighters
Each year, six Holocaust survivors are chosen to light torches in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.
“June 22, 1941 was like an earthquake, like a huge volcano erupting,” 1 recalled Zakhar Trubakov in his memoirs. One of a handful of Jews who witnessed the massacre of the Jews of Kiev at Babi Yar, he described the feeling that gripped him and the public during the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
In June 1941, after having defeated Yugoslavia and Greece, Nazi Germany launched a surprise attack on the USSR. “Operation Barbarossa” was the codename given to the incursion of some four million troops into Soviet territory. The armies of Romania and Finland fought alongside the German military, as did army detachments sent by Germany’s allies—Italy, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia. The objective of the operation was to precipitate the collapse of the “fortress of Bolshevism” before the onset of winter, and the invading army seized thousands of kilometers of territory. Within a short amount of time, Nazi Germany was besieging Leningrad in the north, and later in the offensive its troops reached the banks of the Volga River in the south, not far from the capital, Moscow.
Operation Barbarossa was a milestone in World War II, and a turning point in the fate of the Jews. The campaign in the USSR and the Soviet-annexed territories was an ideological and racist war to the death, and was characterized even after the battles ended by the implementation of Nazi Germany’s murderous policy and by widespread harm to the civilian population, especially the Jews. The ideological campaign and the identification of Communism (which was called “Bolshevism”) with Jews and Judaism created a close linkage between the war and the anti- Jewish policy. Nazi Germany, which had already instituted a policy of expelling, isolating and persecuting the Jews in Germany, Poland and Western Europe—a policy that inflicted hunger, suffering and death— carried out a broad official policy of mass murder for the first time after invading the USSR, which soon became systematic.
At the rear of the German Army in the war in the USSR were the Einsatzgruppen, four mobile killing units of the SS that were tasked with the war on "ideological threats"—Communists, partisans and Jews. Army units, police and other forces committed murder alongside them. Primarily men were shot in the first weeks after the invasion. Starting early in August 1941, however, the circle of murder gradually expanded to encompass broad swathes of territory and all of the Jews in the occupied areas—men, women and children—except for a small number who were assigned to perform forced labor.
The acts of murder followed a particular template: Through threats and various forms of deception, the Jews were required to report to locations, where they were gathered together. From there they were taken by foot or on trucks to a location nearby—such as a ravine, forest, castle or vacation spot—and murdered. Sometimes the Germans made use of anti-tank ditches, often forcing a group from among the victims to dig the killing pits themselves. The Jews were ordered to undress and hand over their valuables at some distance from the mass graves, and then they were taken to the pits and shot. Many were buried alive. For example, according to the German reports 33,771 Jews from Kiev were murdered in a ravine near the city of Babi Yar on September 29-30, 1941 (on Yom Kippur Eve). In Ponary, a forest about ten kilometers away from Vilnius, Lithuania, over 70,000 people, the overwhelming majority of whom were Jews, were murdered starting in July 1941. During that same time period, Jews were also murdered in similar operations in German-occupied Yugoslav territory and by the Antonescu regime on Romanian-occupied land. Dr. Ahron Peretz, who eventually founded and served as director of the Gynecology Department in Rambam Hospital in Haifa, testified at the Eichmann trial about the murder of the Jews of his hometown of Kaunas, Lithuania: “Only a few survived that place, and they later recounted the shocking events to us.” 2
The ability of the SS men and the German commanders and soldiers to murder the Jews stemmed first and foremost from their profound identification with Nazi ideology, which was predicated on an extreme antisemitism that considered Jews and Judaism to be the root of all evil in the world. According to this standpoint, the Jews and Judaism were a demonic force that aspired to rule the world, were instigating social revolutions and spreading Communism, and were a destructive race that was poisoning and undermining the very foundations of human existence. After years of persecution characterized by degrading, isolating and depriving Jews of their rights and dignity everywhere the Nazis reached, the Nazi German worldview became even more extreme, to the point that largescale murder that was as comprehensive as possible could be committed. Internalizing Nazi German ideology, propaganda and policy was crucial to the ability to murder Jewish women and men, old people and children face to face. Along with this, a diverse range of psychological and social contexts enabled "ordinary" men to cast off all moral restraint and join in the slaughter of unarmed, innocent civilians.
The German invasion of the USSR also involved pogroms committed by locals against their Jewish neighbors, and tens of thousands of Jews were murdered by their compatriots well before the policy of the German occupiers was clear. Additionally, local militias and organized groups in Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and eastern Poland collaborated with the Germans and participated in the persecution and murder of Jews. Moreover, Germany’s allies in Romania and Croatia administered an independent policy of persecution, property expropriation and murdering Jews. Many civilians expressed schadenfreude – joy at the misfortune of others – over the catastrophe that had befallen the Jews, and they exploited their plight for their own profit by informing on them, extorting money, and robbing them of their property. There were those who hid and rescued Jews, the few Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to help their Jewish neighbors. However, traditional and modern antisemitism, the atmosphere of intimidation that the Germans imposed, and the human tendency towards conforming led a majority of the local populations to react to the murder of the Jews with indifference.
Close to a million Jews who lived in the German-occupied Soviet territories managed to flee deeper into the country together with the retreating Soviet army; the evacuation on the “eastbound trains” turned out to have saved them in hindsight, even though these Jews also lived in grim conditions during the war and suffered from shortages and hunger, and sometimes performed forced labor in service to the Soviet authorities.
Under the dark shadow of mass murder, the Jews began the struggle to live. They fled to villages and the woods in search of places to hide. Thousands joined partisan units and fought in the forests. Against all odds, underground cells tried to organize acts of resistance and rescue in dozens of towns and cities. In many ghettos and labor camps, the Jews fought for their human dignity and their Jewish spirit, managing to establish educational, cultural and religious institutions, and even to document some of the atrocities and the suffering for posterity.
Jewish life that had existed for centuries in Eastern Europe was practically obliterated. Approximately one million Jews were murdered within the Soviet Union's prewar borders, and some 1.5 million Jews were massacred in the territories annexed by the USSR between 1939 and 1940. In the last months of 1941, based on the accumulating experience in mass murder, and particularly due to the ideological radicalization that considered the war to be an "all-or- nothing" moment, the idea of murdering the Jews en masse crystalized into a comprehensive plan, beginning by destroying all the Jews of Europe: extermination camps were established and run, improved technologies for mass murder were implemented, and deportations by train "to the east" from the rest of Europe began. The murder of the Jews of the USSR and the annexed territories was the beginning of the consolidation of the “Final Solution”—the systematic annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany. By the end of the war, some six million Jews had been murdered.
- Zakhar Trubakov, The Secret of Babi Yar. "Krugozor," (Russian), 1997.
- State of Israel et al. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Court Records of the Attorney General of the State of Israel v. Adolf Eichmann, Volume 1 (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Israeli Ministry of Justice, 1962).
Cantor Shai Abramson recites the "El Maleh Rachamim" (God Full of Mercy) prayer
A special rendition in honor of the establishment of a synagogue at Babyn Yar Read and see more:
Opening of symbolic synagogue at Babyn Yar - Watch
The unveiling of the symbolic synagogue will be an important component of BYHMC’s commemorations of this year’s 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre.
By ALAN ROSENBAUM, Jerusalem Post APRIL 11, 2021
On Thursday, April 8, a new symbolic Jewish synagogue will be dedicated at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center – the first such building erected on the site of the Nazi massacre during the Holocaust.
The prayer space, designed by renowned international architect Manuel Herz, will be dedicated by Ukraine & Kyiv Chief Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, with the virtual participation of leading rabbis and Jewish world leaders. Among the virtual participants will be Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, and Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Holocaust survivor, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, and currently Chair of Yad Vashem.
On September 29 and 30, 1941 – almost 80 years ago – 33,771 Jewish victims were murdered at the Babyn Yar ravine by the Nazis. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians, Roma, mentally ill, and others were shot at Babyn Yar throughout the Nazi occupation of Kyiv. The estimated number of victims murdered at Babyn Yar is approximately 100,000, making it Europe’s largest mass grave.
The unveiling of the symbolic synagogue will be an important component of BYHMC’s commemorations of this year’s 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre, which will culminate in an international event including global leaders in September.
Евгений Евтушенко читает поэму "Бабий Яр" в Яд Вашем
Евгений Евтушенко
Бабий Яр
Над Бабьим Яром памятников нет.
Крутой обрыв, как грубое надгробье.
Мне страшно.
Мне сегодня столько лет,
как самому еврейскому народу.Мне кажется сейчас —
я иудей.
Вот я бреду по древнему Египту.
А вот я, на кресте распятый, гибну,
и до сих пор на мне — следы гвоздей.
Мне кажется, что Дрейфус —
это я.
Мещанство —
мой доносчик и судья.
Я за решеткой.
Я попал в кольцо.
Затравленный,
оплеванный,
оболганный.
И дамочки с брюссельскими оборками,
визжа, зонтами тычут мне в лицо.
Мне кажется —
я мальчик в Белостоке.
Кровь льется, растекаясь по полам.
Бесчинствуют вожди трактирной стойки
и пахнут водкой с луком пополам.
Я, сапогом отброшенный, бессилен.
Напрасно я погромщиков молю.
Под гогот:
«Бей жидов, спасай Россию!»-
насилует лабазник мать мою.
О, русский мой народ! —
Я знаю —
ты
По сущности интернационален.
Но часто те, чьи руки нечисты,
твоим чистейшим именем бряцали.
Я знаю доброту твоей земли.
Как подло,
что, и жилочкой не дрогнув,
антисемиты пышно нарекли
себя «Союзом русского народа»!
Мне кажется —
я — это Анна Франк,
прозрачная,
как веточка в апреле.
И я люблю.
И мне не надо фраз.
Мне надо,
чтоб друг в друга мы смотрели.
Как мало можно видеть,
обонять!
Нельзя нам листьев
и нельзя нам неба.
Но можно очень много —
это нежно
друг друга в темной комнате обнять.
Сюда идут?
Не бойся — это гулы
самой весны —
она сюда идет.
Иди ко мне.
Дай мне скорее губы.
Ломают дверь?
Нет — это ледоход…
Над Бабьим Яром шелест диких трав.
Деревья смотрят грозно,
по-судейски.
Все молча здесь кричит,
и, шапку сняв,
я чувствую,
как медленно седею.
И сам я,
как сплошной беззвучный крик,
над тысячами тысяч погребенных.
Я —
каждый здесь расстрелянный старик.
Я —
каждый здесь расстрелянный ребенок.
Ничто во мне
про это не забудет!
«Интернационал»
пусть прогремит,
когда навеки похоронен будет
последний на земле антисемит.
Еврейской крови нет в крови моей.
Но ненавистен злобой заскорузлой
я всем антисемитам,
как еврей,
и потому —
я настоящий русский!
Memory:
- MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
The post-camp relics are protected by the Museum created in 1947. The Memorial today is i.a. the Archive and Collections as well as research, conservation and publishing center.- MEMORIA - memory, history, education.
The memory of the Shoah, concentration camps, extermination centers and other areas of the human tragedy of World War II is being created around the world in many places and by several people. The monthly magazine "Memoria" is meant to be a place, where we will write and talk about our collective efforts and mission to preserve Memory.- Pamięć - Upamiętniamy Żydów, naszych współobywateli i sąsiadów
Czesław Miłosz - Campo di Fiori
Czeslaw Miłosz
Campo di Fiori
W Rzymie na Campo di Fiori
Kosze oliwek i cytryn,
Bruk opryskany winem
I odłamkami kwiatów.
Różowe owoce morza
Sypią na stoły przekupnie,
Naręcza ciemnych winogron
Padają na puch brzoskwini.
Tu na tym właśnie placu
Spalono Giordana Bruna,
Kat płomień stosu zażegnął
W kole ciekawej gawiedzi.
A ledwo płomień przygasnął,
Znów pełne były tawerny,
Kosze oliwek i cytryn
Nieśli przekupnie na głowach.
Wspomniałem Campo di Fiori
W Warszawie przy karuzeli,
W pogodny wieczór wiosenny,
Przy dźwiękach skocznej muzyki.
Salwy za murem getta
Głuszyła skoczna melodia
I wzlatywały pary
Wysoko w pogodne niebo.
Czasem wiatr z domów płonących
Przynosił czarne latawce,
Łapali skrawki w powietrzu
Jadący na karuzeli.
Rozwiewał suknie dziewczynom
Ten wiatr od domów płonących,
Śmiały się tłumy wesołe
W czas pięknej warszawskiej niedzieli.
Morał ktoś może wyczyta,
Że lud warszawski czy rzymski
Handluje, bawi się, kocha
Mijając męczeńskie stosy.
Inny ktoś morał wyczyta
O rzeczy ludzkich mijaniu,
O zapomnieniu, co rośnie,
Nim jeszcze płomień przygasnął.
Ja jednak wtedy myślałem
O samotności ginących.
O tym, że kiedy Giordano
Wstępował na rusztowanie,
Nie znalazł w ludzkim języku
Ani jednego wyrazu,
Aby nim ludzkość pożegnać,
Tę ludzkość, która zostaje.
Już biegli wychylać wino,
Sprzedawać białe rozgwiazdy,
Kosze oliwek i cytryn
Nieśli w wesołym gwarze.
I był już od nich odległy,
Jakby minęły wieki,
A oni chwilę czekali
Na jego odlot w pożarze.
I ci ginący, samotni,
Już zapomniani od świata,
Język nasz stał się im obcy
Jak język dawnej planety.
Aż wszystko będzie legendą
I wtedy po wielu latach
Na nowym Campo di Fiori
Bunt wznieci słowo poety.
Warszawa - Wielkanoc, 1943