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Jews worldwide recognize YomHashoah

April 16, 2010

by Joshua Kaplan

For two minutes, people, cars, everything around the country stops, and sirens blare. This happens annually for Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Memorial Day, a national holiday in Israel that is also observed by Jews around the world. 

 Commemorating the six million Jews whom the Nazis murdered as well as those who survived the Holocaust, Israelis observe the two minute reflection or prayer at around midday, then hold services at night. Holocaust survivors often speak at the services, and further prayers for the dead accompany. 

 Some American Jews hold similar services, hearing survivors, praying and reflecting. In Portland, for example, people read names of those who perished in the Holocaust in Pioneer Courthouse Square, and the Oregon Board of Rabbis hosted a ceremony at a synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel.

 These commemoration services are changing, though. Over 207,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel right now, yet 63,000 Israeli survivors passed away in the last two years, according to the BBC.

 As the survivors pass away, the emphasis of Yom HaShoah will change, to recognize examples of Jewish empowerment and Jewish resistance movements during the Holocaust, said Jonathan Seidel, Adjunct Jewish Chaplain at Lewis & Clark.

 At LC, Seidel put on a Yom HaShoah event with prayers and a showing of the film Defiance, about a Jewish resistance movement led by the Bielski brothers.

 These resistance movements offer an empowering angle to the history of the Holocaust that is not often taught, Seidel said.

 Anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 Jews joined resistance movements like that of the Bielski brothers depicted in the film. 

 Very few Jews had the opportunity to join partisan groups. Nazi disinformation campaigns hid the reality of the concentration camps and those who did escape had to deal with collective responsibility, which meant that for each escapee, Nazis would murder 10-25 people, including the escapee’s family. 

 Those who did resist had to contend with Nazi patrols, starvation and harsh winter conditions. Even so, Jewish partisans managed to sabotage communications, rescue other Jews, blow up Nazi farms and power plants and destroy thousands of trains.

 Often working alongside non-Jewish resistance groups, Jewish partisans had to cope with rampant anti-Semitism from their allies.

 Despite all the risks the partisans faced, many managed to fight back in a far simpler way—living as Jews.

 There are many living descendants of Jewish partisans alive today. The Bielski group, for example, consisted of about 1,200 people, and now over 10,000 people live because of the their resista