Tuesday, January 27, 2015

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY 2015



"The Holocaust, which established the standard for absolute evil, is the universal heritage of all civilized people"

- Our Living Legacy

 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

            Every year on January 27, we, the comrades of Unit 1012 will remember those who died in the Holocaust during World War II. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is held on January 27 every year as on that date, in 1945, when the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated by Soviet troops.

            This year, 2015, is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. We will remember those Jews who died during the Holocaust, those who survived, the Righteous among the Nations and also those Jews who were killed on the orders of Stalin. Unit 1012 will never forget them and we will always honor and remember this event. 

The Hall of Names containing Pages of Testimony commemorating the millions of Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.
Here are some of the victims we remember who died during the Holocaust:


 

Janusz Korczak and the children, memorial
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – August 1942), was a Polish-Jewish educator, children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old Doctor"). After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when the institution was sent from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp, during the Grossaktion Warsaw of 1942.


Anne Frank pictured in May 1942
Anne Frank A.K.A Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (Dutch pronunciation: [ɑnəˈlis ˈɑnə maˈri frɑŋk], German pronunciation: [anəliːs ˈanə maˈʁiː fʁaŋk]pronunciation (help·info); 12 June 1929 – early March 1945) is one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her wartime diary The Diary of a Young Girl has been the basis for several plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt in Weimar Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941. She gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Remember those Jews murdered by the Einsatzgruppen

 

The surviving teenage son of this murdered family is brought up to the murder site. He was then murdered by a shot to the neck by the German officer standing behind him. Zboriv, Ukraine, 5 July 1941.



Einsatzgruppe A members shoot Jews on the outskirts of Kovno, 1941-1942. Novosti Press, Moscow

A member of Einsatzgruppe D is about to shoot a man sitting by a mass grave in Vinnytsia, Ukraine in 1942. Present in the background are members of the German Army, the German Labor Service, and the Hitler Youth. The back of the photograph is inscribed "The last Jew in Vinnitsa"


 

Still photograph from the Soviet Film of the liberation of Auschwitz, taken by the film unit of the First Ukrainian Front, shot over a period of several months beginning on January 27, 1945 by Alexander Voronzow and others in his group. Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence. Among those pictured are Tomasz Szwarz; Alicja Gruenbaum; Solomon Rozalin; Gita Sztrauss; Wiera Sadler; Marta Wiess; Boro Eksztein; Josef Rozenwaser; Rafael Szlezinger; Gabriel Nejman; Gugiel Appelbaum; Mark Berkowitz (a twin); Pesa Balter; Rut Muszkies (later Webber); Miriam Friedman; and twins Miriam Mozes and Eva Mozes wearing knitted hats.

Wall display of prisoner identification photos by the SS in Nazi-occupied Poland of 1943, created through force with both an unwilling subject and an unwilling creator, notably prisoner Wilhelm Brasse of Poland. Image taken by Skyliber in Auschwitz concentration camp in 2004.



Hungarian Jews on the Judenrampe (Jewish ramp) after disembarking from the transport trains. To be sent rechts!—to the right—meant the person had been chosen as a laborer; links!—to the left—meant death in the gas chambers. Photo from the Auschwitz Album (May 1944).

Woman with children in German death camp Auschwitz in Poland during Second World War. Documentary photos of the crimes of Eichmann, murderer of the Jews. Eichmann and his officers were responsible for the murder of most of the jewish population in the ghettos of the territory of Czechoslovakia, and for the transport of countless Jewish men, women and children of different nationalities to the extermination camps, for example Auschwitz-Birkenau. The documentary photos are part of the pictures from SSer Bernhard Walter (from Nordböhmen) and were admitted by Eichman. Facist criminals like Eichman did not even halt for the elderly and the children. Here, children and an old woman on the way to the death barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau.


Hungarian Jews not selected as laborers were murdered in the gas chambers almost immediately after arrival. Photo from the Auschwitz Album (May 1944).


Here are some Russian Jews who were murdered under the orders of Joseph Stalin:

Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels (16 March [O.S. 4 March] 1890 – 13 January 1948) was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the Second World War. However, as Joseph Stalin pursued an increasingly anti-Semitic line after the War, Mikhoels' position as a leader of the Jewish community led to increasing persecution from the Soviet state. In 1948, Mikhoels was murdered on the orders of Stalin and his body was run over to create the impression of a traffic accident.


Night of the Murdered Poets
Clockwise from top left: Peretz Markish, Itsik Feffer, Leyb Kvitko, Dovid Hofshteyn and Dovid Bergelson
On this date, August 12, 1952, 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union. This case is also known as The Night of The Murdered Poets.

Let us hear from several Holocaust Survivors: 




Simon Wiesenthal on history repeating.

Simon Wiesenthal, KBE (31 December 1908 – 20 September 2005) was an Austrian writer and Nazi hunter. He was a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter.


Elie Wiesel on surviving the Holocaust

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE (born September 30, 1928) is a Romanian-born Jewish-American professor and political activist. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Wiesel is also the Advisory Board chairman of the newspaper Algemeiner Journal.
When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind," stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps," as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace," Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.

Let us remember those awarded the Righteous Among The Nations:


“Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe"
(Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5)
Righteous Among the Nations medals and diplomas handed over during a ceremony in the Polish Senate on 17th April 2012

"In those times there was darkness everywhere. In heaven and on earth, all the gates of compassion seemed to have been closed. The killer killed and the Jews died and the outside world adopted an attitude either of complicity or of indifference. Only a few had the courage to care. These few men and women were vulnerable, afraid, helpless - what made them different from their fellow citizens?… Why were there so few?… Let us remember: What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander…. Let us not forget, after all, there is always a moment when moral choice is made…. And so we must know these good people who helped Jews during the Holocaust. We must learn from them, and in gratitude and hope, we must remember them."

- Elie Wiesel, in Carol Rittner, Sandra Meyers, Courage To Care - Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, NYU Press, 1986. P. 2]



 

What Oskar Schindler said to the 300 women he saved on their return to his factory.

Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was an ethnic German industrialist, German spy, and member of the Nazi party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively. He is the subject of the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark, and the subsequent 1993 film Schindler's List, which reflected his life as an opportunist initially motivated by profit who came to show extraordinary initiative, tenacity, and dedication in order to save the lives of his Jewish employees.


Quote by Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝 Sugihara Chiune) 
Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝 Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986) was a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing transit visas to Jewish refugees so that they could travel to Japan. Most of the Jews who escaped were refugees from German-occupied Poland and residents of Lithuania. Sugihara wrote travel visas that facilitated the escape of more than 6,000 Jewish refugees to Japanese territory, risking his career and his family's lives. Sugihara had told the refugees to call him "Sempo", the Sino-Japanese reading of the characters in his first name, discovering it was much easier for Western people to pronounce. In 1985, Israel honored him as Righteous Among the Nations for his actions.



 

Irena Sendler [PHOTO SOURCE: http://izquotes.com/quote/265881]

Irena Sendler (née Krzyżanowska, also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, Nom de guerre Jolanta; 15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008) was a Polish nurse/social worker who served in the Polish Underground during World War II, and as head of children's section of Żegota, an underground resistance organization in German-occupied Warsaw. Assisted by some two dozen other Żegota members, Sendler smuggled some 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and then provided them with false identity documents and with housing outside the Ghetto, saving those children during the Holocaust.

The Nazis eventually discovered her activities, tortured her, and sentenced her to death, but she managed to evade execution and survive the war. In 1965, Sendler was recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations. Late in life she was awarded Poland's highest honor for her wartime humanitarian efforts. She appears on a silver 2008 Polish commemorative coin honoring some of the Polish Righteous among the Nations.

Yad Vashem: Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future
Uploaded on Apr 30, 2009
Containing the world's largest repository of information on the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is a leader in Holocaust education, commemoration, research and documentation. Located in Jerusalem, Israel, Yad Vashem's 45 acre campus comprises museums, exhibitions, memorials, sculptures, gardens, and world class research and education centers. Millions each year access Yad Vashem's vast resources in order to study, teach and commemorate the Holocaust.





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