Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the survivors; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the future. Yad Vashem's vision, as stated on its website, is: "To lead the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, and to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event to every person in Israel, to the Jewish people, and to every significant and relevant audience worldwide."
Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah, known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in that period. In Israel, it is a national memorial day. The first official commemorations took place in 1951, and the observance of the day was anchored in a law passed by the Knesset in 1959. It is held on the 27th of Nisan, unless the 27th would be adjacent to the Jewish Sabbath, in which case the date is shifted by a day.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the genocide of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, an attempt to implement its "final solution" to the Jewish question. 27 January was chosen to commemorate the date when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army in 1945.
Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accepted definition of the term, and it has been applied variously to Jews who survived the war in German-occupied Europe or other Axis territories, as well as to those who fled to Allied and neutral countries before or during the war. In some cases, non-Jews who also experienced collective persecution under the Nazi regime are considered Holocaust survivors as well. The definition has evolved over time.
Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the Deutsche Reichsbahn and other European railways under the control of Nazi Germany and its allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holocaust, to the Nazi concentration, forced labour, and extermination camps.
A Page of Testimony is a form issued by Yad Vashem that asks for information about a Jewish victim of the Holocaust. Over 4.3 million Pages of Testimony have been submitted to Yad Vashem, beginning in the 1950s. Most of these, as well as other forms of documentation of Holocaust victims, are searchable and viewable online through Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names.
Irena Adamowicz, was a Polish-born scout leader and a resistance member during World War II. She was a courier for the underground Home Army. In 1985, Adamowicz was posthumously bestowed the title of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem for her activities involving providing information to a number of Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland.
The Grossaktion Warsaw was the Nazi code name for the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July. During the Grossaktion, Jews were terrorized in daily round-ups, marched through the ghetto, and assembled at the Umschlagplatz station square for what was called in the Nazi euphemistic jargon "resettlement to the East". From there, they were sent aboard overcrowded Holocaust trains to the extermination camp in Treblinka.
Nathan Rapoport (1911–1987) was a Warsaw-born Jewish sculptor and painter, later a resident of Israel and then the United States.
The Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations is part of the much larger Yad Vashem complex located on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem. Along with some two dozen different structures within the Yad Vashem memorial – which is the second most-visited destination in the country after the Western Wall – the Garden of the Righteous is meant to honor those non-Jews who during the Holocaust risked their lives to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
Rywka Lipszyc was a Polish-born Jewish diarist and Holocaust survivor. She was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp followed by a transfer to Gross-Rosen and forced labor at its subcamp in Christianstadt. She was then taken on a death march to Bergen-Belsen, and was liberated there in April 1945. Too ill to be evacuated, she was transferred to a hospital at Niendorf, where the record of her life ended.
Moshe (Mosheh) Merin was the head of the Jewish Community Council, or Judenrat, in the Sosnowiec Ghetto during the Nazi German occupation of Poland in World War II. It is believed that he was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp. As with most Jewish Council leadership of the time, his actions or lack thereof during the Holocaust in occupied Poland are highly controversial.
Mémorial de la Shoah is the Holocaust museum in Paris, France. The memorial is in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, in the Marais district, which had a large Jewish population at the beginning of World War II.
The Stolpersteine in Prague-Josefov lists the Stolpersteine in the town quarter Josefov of Prague, the former Jewish quarter of the city. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
The Stolpersteine in Prague-Vršovice and Modřany lists the Stolpersteine in the town quarters Vršovice and Modřany. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
The Stolpersteine in the Pardubický lists the Stolpersteine in the Pardubice Region in the east of Bohemia. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
Esther Farbstein is an Israeli historian, researcher, author, and lecturer. Considered the leading Haredi scholar of the Holocaust, she focuses on the spiritual responses of Jews to Nazi persecution. She has introduced new sources for academic research on the Holocaust, and has also shepherded the incorporation of Holocaust education in Haredi girls schools. In 1994, she founded and became head of the Center for Holocaust Studies at Michlalah–Jerusalem College in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem. She is the author of numerous books, articles, and monographs in Hebrew and English.
Edward Mosberg was a Polish-born American Holocaust survivor, educator, and philanthropist. During the Holocaust, he was held by the Nazis from 14 years of age in Kraków Ghetto, Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, Auschwitz concentration camp, Mauthausen concentration camp, and a slave labor camp in Linz, Austria, that was liberated by the US Army in 1945. Nearly all of his family were murdered in the Holocaust.
