Yom haShoah..1 May -2 May 2008

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY

Beginning at sunset on Thursday, May 1, 2008 and
concluding at sunset Friday, May 2, 2008

Yom Hashoah is the day chosen by the Israeli Knesset in 1951 to mourn the millions killed in the Holocaust, often commemorated with speeches by survivors and the reading of names. In Israel, a siren's blast allows collective remembrance in a moment of silence.




I had thought not to include the above photograph but then I thought why should I? Why shouldn't people see what happened to the innocent; the young, old, disabled, women and men. My thoughts when I see one of the photos like this is, is one of them my family? Are my grandmother's sisters and their families in that photo? It should be seen.

I'll be lighting a memorial candle for my family who died in the Shoah, in the Warsaw Ghetto and Treblinka.






Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah in Hebrew) is a national day of commemoration in Israel, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized. It is a solemn day, beginning at sunset on the 27th of the month of Nisan and ending the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom of marking a day. Places of entertainment are closed and memorial ceremonies are held throughout the country.

The central ceremonies, in the evening and the following morning, are held at Yad Vashem and are broadcast on the television. Marking the start of the day-in the presence of the President of the State of Israel and the Prime Minister, dignitaries, survivors, children of survivors and their families, gather together with the general public to take part in the memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem in which six torches, representing the six million murdered Jews, are lit.

The following morning, the ceremony at Yad Vashem begins with the sounding of a siren for two minutes throughout the entire country. For the duration of the sounding, work is halted, people walking in the streets stop, cars pull off to the side of the road and everybody stands at silent attention in reverence to the victims of the Holocaust.

Afterward, the focus of the ceremony at Yad Vashem is the laying of wreaths at the foot of the six torches, by dignitaries and the representatives of survivor groups and institutions. Other sites of remembrance in Israel, such as the Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, also host memorial ceremonies, as do schools, military bases, municipalities and places of work.

Throughout the day, both the television and radio broadcast programs about the Holocaust. In recent years, other countries and Jewish communities have adopted Yom Hashoah, the 27th of Nisan, to mark their own day of memorial for the victims of the Holocaust.

The link to Yad Vashem:

http://www.yadvashem.org/