Holocaust Remembrance Day April 15

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jonathan Walker
  • 898th Munitions Squadron
Editor's note: The Kirtland Chief's Group will display a Days of Remembrance Exhibit at the Base Exchange April 16-21. The hours for the exhibit will be from Thursday-Friday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. and 4-5:30 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Parental discretion is advised.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day that has been set aside for remembering the victims of the Holocaust and for reminding Americans of what can happen to civilized people when bigotry, hatred and indifference reign.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, created by an act of Congress in 1980, was mandated to lead the nation in civic commemorations and to encourage appropriate remembrance observances throughout the country. The observance day this year falls on April 15.

While there are obvious religious aspects to such a day, it is not a religious observance as such. The internationally recognized date comes from the Hebrew calendar and corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on that calendar. That is the date on which Israel commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. In Hebrew, Holocaust Remembrance Day is called Yom Hashoah.

When the actual date of Yom Hashoah falls on a Friday, the state of Israel, following the Knesset legislation establishing the event, observes Yom Hashoah on the preceding Thursday. When it falls on a Sunday, Yom Hashoah is observed on the following Monday.

Although Jews were the primary victims of Nazi racism, others targeted for death included tens of thousands of Gypsies and at least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled people. As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Germans persecuted and murdered millions of other people. More than 3 million Soviet prisoners of war were murdered or died of starvation, disease or maltreatment. The Germans killed tens of thousands of non-Jewish Polish intellectual and religious leaders, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet citizens for forced labor. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, homosexuals and others deemed to be socially unacceptable were persecuted. Thousands of political and religious dissidents were also targeted. Many of these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment.

In the final months of the war, SS guards forced camp inmates to march hundreds of miles without shelter in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives, they began to encounter and liberate concentration camp prisoners. World War II ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender of German armed forces in the west on May 7 and in the east on May 9, 1945.

By war's end, close to two out of every three Jews in Europe had been murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators in the massive crime we now call the Holocaust.

The Holocaust is not merely a story of destruction and loss; it is a story of an apathetic world and a few rare individuals of extraordinary courage. It is a remarkable story of the human spirit and the life that flourished before the Holocaust, struggled during its darkest hours and ultimately prevailed as survivors rebuilt their lives.

(Information from www.ushmm.org was used to write this article)