On Thursday, January 27th, once again we mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2022, with virtual and in-person events in NYC and worldwide to commemorate the six million people murdered by the Nazis.
Established in 2005 by the United Nations, Holocaust Remembrance Day was designated on the same day as the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945, so 2022 is the 77th Anniversary.
Although most of the victims were Jewish, the Nazis also exterminated people whose only crime was being inter-racial, a gypsy, mentally or physically challenged, or anti-Hitler.
And you don’t have to be Jewish to celebrate those who survived, and think also about the victims of other genocides since then which have claimed so many more lives - in Rwanda, Cambodia, Myannmar, and the current ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims in China.
Unless otherwise noted, all events are FREE.
Photo: Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel, offers a specialized “mini-site” dedicated to resources specific to Intl. Holocaust Remembrance Day, including:
- Online resources marking the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Topical educational resources
- A virtual tour of Yad Vashem’s “Shoah” exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
There is also a digital commemorative project: The I Remember Wall, where you can commemorate a loved one, or be matched at random with a victim who has no survivors to honor them, and learn their story, including a photo, if available, to ensure the memory of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust is never forgotten.
Personal note -
- I signed up to remember my father’s brother, who perished in Auschwitz, along with dozens of other relatives of my father, who also perished in Auschwitz and other camps.
- This uncle I never knew stayed behind in Germany to fight with the underground partisans fighting the Nazis, after most of my father’s managed to flee to the USA in the mid-1930s.
- The others who didn’t also were murdered in concentration camps.
- Their names on on plaques at the Alte Judisches Friethof (Old Jewish Cemetery) in Frankfurt, which I make sure to visit to pay my respects whenever I visit Germany.
Yad Vashem Online Women of Valor - Stories of Women Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust
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A little over half of the approximately 28,000 Righteous Among the Nations recognized so far by Yad Vashem were women.
While many of them acted in cooperation with other family members, some of these courageous individuals were the initiators of the rescue, and acted independently to save Jews despite the threat to their lives.
Visit the online exhibition “‘Women of Valor’ – Stories of Women Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust” to read about the lives of some of these heroic women.
Tuesday, Jan. 25
Holocaust Remembrance in the Digital Era: Practices, Challenges and Ideas
The Pilecki Institute, a Polish government institution dedicated to preserving the memory, documenting and researching the historical experiences of Polish citizens and increasing awareness regarding totalitarianism in the 20th century, is sponsoring this special Holocaust Remembrance Day event.
Remember that the day commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Bireau, which were in Poland.
The FREE webinar examines the following -
• What are the most pressing challenges for public memory today and in the future?
• How to cultivate the memory of the totalitarian crimes of the Third Reich?
• What role does the memory of the heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising fighters play in the contemporary public memory landscape?
• How to raise public awareness about the somewhat lesser known history extermination camps such as Treblinka, Belzec or Sobibor?
• How to develop effective educational tools, build a culture of dialogue and reconciliation that embraces young generations from different countries?
• How to maintain a bond with departing witnesses of history for the future generations?
Participants include -
- Monika Krawczyk (Director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warszawa)
- Elke Gryglewski (Director, Stiftung niedersächsische Gedenkstätten, Bergen-Belsen Memorial)
- Judith Hoehne-Krawczyk (Deputy Head of the Education and Program Department at the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oświęcim/Auschwitz)
- Moderator: Hanna Radziejowska (Director, Pilecki Institute in Berlin)
This discussion will be attended by the director of the Jewish Historical Institute – that houses the Ringelblum Archive - the Archives of the Warsaw Ghetto.
- FREE at Noon, Tuesday, Jan. 25
- Register at: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j4RQbmikR9a71J0EPxJJEg
Holocaust Remembrance Events on Thursday, Jan. 27th
Memory, Family and Survival
The authors of two new memoirs share the stories of families that were irrevocably reshaped by the Holocaust in this FREE program sponsored by the NYPL.
In The Letters Project: A Daughter’s Journey, Tony-nominated actor and director Eleanor Reissa blends a sweeping history of the Holocaust with an intimate personal narrative about discovering family secrets buried in a secret trove of love letters.
In Always Remember Your Name, sisters Andra Bucci and Tatiana Bucci, who wre imprisoned in Auschwitz at the ages of 4 and 6, recount their story of survival and of the motherly love that reunited their family against impossible odds.
Both books demonstrate that even the families who had survived the Holocaust would never be free of it.
The Bucci sisters, along with their translator Ann Goldstein, join Eleanor Reissa to speak with critic and biographer Ruth Franklin about the legacy of the Holocaust on the ties that bind families together and keep them apart.
- FREE, 1pm to 2pm
This program will be streamed live on the NYPL event page.
United Nations Holocaust Memorial Ceremony
The memorial ceremony includes a musical performance and memorial prayers in several languages.
- FREE, 11am
- The ceremony will be livestreamed worldwide through UN Web TV
Shadows in the City of Light - Paris in Postwar French Jewish Writing
The Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University is sponsoring the the launch of the book Shadows in the City of Light: Paris in Postwar French Jewish Writing, edited by Centre members Sara R. Horowitz, Amira Bojadzija-Dan, and Julia Creet,
Between the two World Wars, Paris was a magnet for eastern European Jews fleeing oppression and attracted by it promise of equality. But these “foreign Jews” – immigrants and their children – were the most vulnerable during the Nazi occupation of Paris and the ensuing round-ups and deportations. After World War II, the public conversation about the evils of World War II rarely acknowledged Jewish victimization. But urban space remembers.
Post-war Jewish writing – by both native Parisians and war refugees – walk their readers through the city’s streets and neighborhoods. In their writing, the citiscape itself bears witness to the absent Jews, and what happened to them.
- FREE, Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 7pm on RSVP: https://yorku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_V3iHQdv-R8uHxxZirMAIZA
Makers of Memories: Holocaust Remembrance and the Creative Process
In recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Arnold Mittelman, President of the National Jewish Theater Foundation (NJTF), speaks with the artistic leader of the Manhattan Theatre Club, director Lynne Meadow, and Broadway star, actress and author Tovah Feldshuh on the role of theatre in Holocaust Remembrance and how their creative process and Jewish heritage has informed their remarkable body of work. Renowned Broadway and off-Broadway award winning producer Daryl Roth will provide introductory remarks.
In a statement. Mr. Mittelman says, “we are living in times when studies indicate that the memory and knowledge of the Holocaust is lessening. Unfortunately, this coincides with the passing of living survivors and the rise of anti-semitism. Civilization will be profoundly and negatively affected if the causes of this man-made tragedy are not understood in the context of today’s world. By researching, educating and performing Holocaust-related theater we utilize our talents to inform and alter the course of these events.”
- FREE, online only, at 6pm.
- Register here to receive the Zoom link, which will be emailed to registrants two days before the event, with reminder emails on the day of the event.
Portraits of Holocaust Survivors at Buckingham Palace
Prince Charles has commissioned seven paintings of Holocaust survivors, to serve as a “Guiding Light” for future generations. Most of the Holocaust survivors featured in the portraits are more than 90 years old and were imprisoned in concentration camps during their childhood years and are living in Britain as adults.
The survivors depicted include Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a 96-year-old musician from a German Jewish family who played in an orchestra of prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp, and was later held in the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany, and Helen Aronson, 94, a survivor of the imprisonment of Jewish people in Nazi-occupied Poland’s Lodz ghetto.
The paintings are being exhibited at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace from January 27 to February 13, and at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh from March 17 to June 6.
The portraits and the story behind them also is the subject of a BBC documentary airing on January 27, which includes interviews with the survivors, who will share their experiences of events during the Nazi era. Check your local TV listings for the time and channel.
The established artists participating in the project include the most expensive living female artist Jenny Saville, BP Portrait Award-winner Clara Drummond, original member of the Young British Artists Stuart Pearson Wright, and painters Paul Benney, Peter Kuhfeld, Massimiliano Pironti, and Ishbel Myerscough, according to the BBC.
“As the number of Holocaust survivors sadly but inevitably declines, my abiding hope is that this special collection will act as a further guiding light,” Prince Charles told the BBC, adding that the portraits will also serve as a reminder of “history’s darkest days.”
Tuesday, Feb. 1 -
Museum of Jewish Heritage: Searching for Truth in Holocaust Images
In Claude Lanzmann’s seminal nine-and-a-half-hour film SHOAH, he chose not to use any images of the Holocaust, telling the story instead solely through the words of witnesses. By contrast, art historian Georges Didi-Huberman and contemporary artist Gerhard Richter have both emphasized the power of images to reflect and educate—the former in his book Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz, and the latter in a series of paintings titled “Birkenau.”
Join the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Fritz Ascher Society for a lecture exploring the tension between these different perspectives on images, words, and the Holocaust with German art historian and curator Eckhart Gillen. Gillen will ground the discussion in the example of Boris Lurie, the subject of the Museum’s special exhibition Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try, who used art to access his buried memories before he was able to address them with words.
- FREE at 2pm, but a $10 donation is suggested to enable more progrms like this one.
- Register here.
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