A MEMORIAL OF THE FORMER EAST GERMANY

A MEMORIAL OF THE FORMER EAST GERMANY is seen at World War II concentration camp of Mauthausen, on April 17, 2013. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER KLEIN (Photo credit should read ALEXANDER KLEIN/AFP via Getty Images

A menorah memorial

A MENORAH MEMORIAL at the entrance of the Drobitsky Yar Holocaust memorial outside Kharkiv was damaged in Russian shelling last month.

A woman pays homage

A WOMAN PAYS HOMAGE at the memorial to victims of the 1941 Nazi massacre of Jews in Babi Yar in Kyiv, Ukraine. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

ALICJA MULARSKI

ALICJA MULARSKI, the daughter of the late Polish couple Jan Dziadosz and Sabina Perzyna receives a medal and certificate of the Righteous Among the Nations award during a posthumous ceremony honouring her parents and their son Aleksandr Dziadosz at the Yad Vashem Museum on January 30, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / THOMAS COEX).

AMERICAN WINNERS. GRAND PRIZE WINNER

AMERICAN WINNERS. GRAND PRIZE WINNER 3D Art-High School, Escaping Butterflies by Ryan Neal Avonworth High School. I created a pile of gray butterflies surrounded by barbed wire to symbolize people killed in the concentration camps. The butterfly that still has some color and flies out represents the survivors. The colors are not fully present on the surviving butterfly to symbolize the mental and physical toll it caused on each Holocaust survivor. The butterfly escaping is based on a woman’s diary entry about having hope for liberation and not letting this dream go. Being surrounded by dead bodies and still have the will to live shows the Holocaust survivor’s extreme resilience.

ANNE FRANK MEMORIA UK

ANNE FRANK MEMORIAL UK, this sculpture depicts Anne Frank writing in her diary. Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 12th, 1929. Possibly the most famous Jewish child who was a victim of the Holocaust, Anne’s story is known by millions of readers worldwide thanks to the diary she kept whilst in hiding from the Nazis.

ANNE FRANK MEMORIAL 1

ANNE FRANK MEMORIAL 1, Anne Frank and downtown Boise, Idaho, may seem an unlikely pairing, but the legacy Anne left for human dignity strongly resonates in Idaho. Located in the heart of Boise’s cultural district at the intersection of the Boise Greenbelt and 8th Street, the Memorial is nestled behind the Boise Public Library. Annually, thousands of school children and adults tour Memorial and participate in the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights’ programming.

ANNE FRANK MEMORIAL

ANNE FRANK MEMORIAL. The Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial is an 81-acre educational park “designed to actively engage visitors to think, to talk with one another, and to respond to the human rights issues we face in our community, our country, and our world.”

AUSCHWITZ LIBERATION 2019

AUSCHWITZ LIBERATION 2019 EVENT POSTER.

Belarus, ‘The Pit’ Holocaust memorial and tragic story of the Minsk Ghetto

BELARUS, ‘THE PIT’ HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL AND TRAGIC STORY OF THE MINSK GHETTO, you have to look very hard to retrace the steps of the Holocaust in Minsk, a city that was all but flattened by the Germans. But one very important and powerful landmark that is a must visit on a trip to Minsk is the Yama Memorial, known in English as The Pit, which is located in the area of the former ghetto and honours all Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Belarus.

CAMP SUITCASES, MUSEUM OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, GDANSK

CAMP SUITCASES, MUSEUM OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, GDANSK, these are an exhibition and are not genuine suitcases from World War II. The city had records of every person deported and built a display to represent each of them.

Delegations from 25 countries to participate in the 2022 March of the Living

DELEGATIONS FROM 25 COUNTRIES TO PARTICIPATE IN THE 2022 MARCH OF THE LIVING, Jewish youth participating in the March of the Living at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp site in Poland, as Israel marks annual Holocaust Memorial Day, on May 2, 2019.Yossi Zeliger/Flash90. Nearly 2,000 participants from 25 different countries will take part Thursday in the traditional March of the Living at the former Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

Despite the indifference

DESPITE THE INDIFFERENCE of most Europeans and the collaboration of others in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust, individuals in every European country and from all religious backgrounds risked their lives to help Jews. Rescue efforts ranged from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks both small and large.

DURING THE HOLOCAUST

DURING THE HOLOCAUST, there were Gentiles who risked their lives to save the Jews from this Holocaust. As Pierre Sauvage describes, "They were, for the most part, seemingly ordinary men and women who could not accept the idea that there was nothing they could do." They hid entire families or provided the means of escape for many; they protected children by "adopting" them, they used whatever means were necessary to defy the Nazi murderers; they were the Righteous. In Israel a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, is approached through an avenue of trees known as the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles. At the base of each tree a small plaque testifies to the heroism of that person whose action saved a Jewish life. To walk this path is to be surrounded by symbols of all that is noblest in mankind. It is an exalted atmosphere. In Glencoe, Illinois, in the summer of 1984, the idea of creating another Avenue of the Righteous was born. A call was sent out to Christian, Jewish and Baha'I congregations for a meeting that set in motion one of the most significant interfaith projects ever attempted on the North Shore: the identification of and tribute to non-Jewish heroes of the Holocaust. The response was immediate. Support grew as more congregations, public schools and civic organizations joined in. Members of the clergy and lay persons came together in a common effort which soon became a reality. By 1986 the Evanston City Council had unanimously approved development of the Avenue of the Righteous on a site in Ingraham Park adjacent to the Evanston Civic Center. The design was complete, sufficient funds had contributed and construction began. In 1987, the Avenue of the Righteous was dedicated.

Dutch Holocaust Memorial

DUTCH HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL. Situated along the Weesperstraat, an important axis within the Jewish Cultural Quarter, the Dutch Holocaust Memorial of Names is adjacent to the Hermitage Museum, East of the Diaconie’s verdant Hoftuin garden and café, just a stone’s throw from the Amstel River and in close proximity to important Jewish cultural institutions such as the Jewish Historical Museum and the Portuguese Synagogue. The 1,550 square meter memorial incorporates four volumes that represent the letters in the Hebrew word לזכר meaning “In Memory of”. The volumes are arranged in a rectilinear configuration on the north-south axis of the main thoroughfare Weesperstraat and the Hoftuin pavilion to the East. As visitors enter the memorial they will encounter a labyrinth of passages articulated by two-meter-high brick walls carrying the message of Remembrance. Each of the four volumes is crafted from mirror-finished stainless steel that hovers above the walls of individually stacked bricks. 102,000 bricks are each inscribed with a name, giving a tangible quantification to the many casualties, as well as leaving 1000 blank bricks that will memorialize the unknown victims.

Elie Wiesel

ELIE WIESEL'S writings were instrumental in shaping how the world understands the Holocaust. Photograph by Stanislav Krupar, laif, Redux

FENCED

FENCED, San Francisco's Holocaust Memorial – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World Creator: Picasa

For This the Earth Mourns, Holocaust Memorial

FOR THIS THE EARTH MOURNS | HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL, a Holocaust memorial, was sculpted by Toledo artist Lois Dorfman in 1979. The memorial depicts 13 bronze figures rising from the bricks, depicting emotions felt by victims of the Holocaust. Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo, 6465 Sylvania Ave, Sylvania, OH 43560

GIANT HAND

GIANT HAND, "The Hand," bronze sculpture of agonized victims, part of Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach.

Holocaust memorial in Schwerte

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL IN SCHWERTE, the railway facility in the eastern district of Schwerte became a branch of the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1944. The camp had 445 prisoners in August and 670 in November 1944. The number of escapees was comparatively high, in November 1944 48 prisoners escaped. The camp in Schwerte was disbanded in December 1944 and the remaining prisoners were brought back to Buchenwald.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL, STATUE OF LOVE AND ANGUISH

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL, statue of love and anguish.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL, the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach, Fla., designed by Kenneth Triester, is one of the nation is most extensive and eloquent memorials.

Holocaust survivors and relatives

HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AND RELATIVES arrive at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Survivors of Nazi death camps marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp during World War II in a modest ceremony in southern Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Holocaust-Mahnmal in Minsk

HOLOCAUST-MAHNMAL IN MINSK.

JANUSZ KORCZAK

JANUSZ KORCZAK was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a Polish Jewish doctor and author. Goldszmit first gained fame in the early 1900s writing storybooks for children and childcare books for adults. Born into a highly assimilated Polish Jewish family in Warsaw in the late 1870s, Goldszmit trained as a pediatrician. He developed groundbreaking views on raising children, urging adults to treat them with both love and respect. As his reputation as an author grew, Goldszmit became known throughout Poland as Janusz Korczak. In 1911, Korczak took a position leading a new Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. For decades, he and his close colleague, Stefania "Stefa" Wilczyńska, operated the children’s home according to Korczak’s philosophies on raising children. Every child in the home had duties and rights, and everyone was responsible for their actions. The home itself was run as a “children’s republic.” The young residents regularly convened a court to hear grievances and dispense justice. Korczak also gave the children of the home central roles in the production of Mały Przegląd (The Little Journal). Mały Przegląd was a regular supplement published in the Polish-language Zionist newspaper, Nasz Przegląd (Our Journal). Unlike many other children’s periodicals at the time, the children themselves chose the topics they wrote about and determined what would appear in the pages of their newspaper. Korczak’s national profile grew as he began making radio broadcasts as “the Old Doctor.” He read stories, interviewed children, and lectured in a casual style that made his weekly show popular with both children and adults. Rising antisemitism in Poland in the mid-1930s caused Korczak to lose this position. However, he briefly made regular broadcasts again during the weeks following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Korczak tried to encourage and reassure his listeners until the partition of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union later that month. In fall 1940, German authorities created the Warsaw ghetto. The Jewish community was forced to pay for the construction of a wall that separated the area from the rest of the city. Conditions in the overcrowded and undersupplied ghetto were extraordinarily difficult. Starvation and disease caused dozens of thousands of deaths, leaving many children orphaned and unattended. Korczak’s ghetto diary records his constant struggles to provide food and medicine for the growing number of children under his care. Although he was beginning to struggle with his own health, Korczak spent much of his time seeking donations and carrying food back to the children’s home. His diary also describes how he tried to preserve the children’s mental and emotional well-being. The small staff did their best to maintain some semblance of the home’s normal, daily routine even in the miserable conditions of the ghetto. They kept the children focused on their studies and organized lectures, concerts, and theatrical performances. In late July 1942, German authorities began the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to their deaths at the Treblinka killing center. Korczak’s Polish friends outside of the ghetto offered to help him escape the deportations by hiding him or providing him with false identity documents. Korczak would not consider leaving, however. He and his staff decided they would not attempt to save themselves. Rather, they would continue taking care of the children for as long as they possibly could. In early August 1942, German authorities deported the residents of all children’s homes within the Warsaw ghetto. On the morning of August 5 or 6, German police suddenly arrived and ordered Korczak’s staff to evacuate their building. Korczak, Wilczyńska, and the rest of the small staff quickly assembled the children outside. With their dedicated caretakers assisting them, nearly two hundred children walked through the crowded streets of the ghetto to the Umschlagplatz (deportation site). Korczak and the staff tried to keep the children from panicking. Witness accounts describe the group’s march through the ghetto as orderly and dignified. After they arrived at the Umschlagplatz, Korczak and his staff boarded train cars along with the children. These trains carried deportees to the Treblinka killing center, which was located roughly sixty miles northeast of Warsaw. Conditions in these hot and overcrowded cattle boxcars were extremely dangerous for the malnourished and ill people packed tightly inside. Many individuals died on these deportation trains. Virtually all of the Jews who survived the deadly journey from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka in the summer of 1942 were murdered shortly after their arrival. The children and their caretakers were almost certainly all killed the day they arrived at Treblinka. Janusz Korczak’s career as an author, a doctor, and a champion of children’s rights continues to inspire educators and childcare experts today. Korczak was equally proud of his Polish nationality and his Jewish identity. He is celebrated by Polish and Jewish communities alike for his life’s work and the sacrifices he made for the children in his care.