The annual remembrance known as Yom HaShoah is one of the most solemn on Israel’s calendar, with the nation coming to a standstill during a two-minute siren on Thursday morning. According to the Hebrew calendar, Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising — the most significant act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Although the uprising ultimately failed, it is remembered in Israel as a symbol of strength and the struggle for freedom in the face of annihilation.
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It means “resilience, tenacity, strength. It’s the hallmark of being a Holocaust survivor, the very concept of surviving, of everyday problems, of fighting until the end,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference.
“And for some people, unfortunately, the end was the gas chamber. For other people the end was the Warsaw ghetto, where a very small group of people who weren’t well-equipped held out for nearly a month,” Schneider said.
“And that’s why it’s such an important day in Israel, and around the world for the Jewish community because it symbolizes the fight of certainly the Jewish people, but of any people facing this type of incredible adversity.”
The Claims Conference is working with its partners, among them the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, to get as many Holocaust survivors out of Ukraine as possible. Thousands of people have been killed and more than five million have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
Holocaust survivors from Canada, England, France, Germany, Israel, the United States and Ukraine were part of the video statement.
“Survivors from many different countries and languages who have vastly different persecution experiences — some were in concentration camps, some were in ghettos, some fled, some were in hiding,” Schneider said.
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“And yet they come together to speak in one voice of the hope for the future.”
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