SuZan Klassen

Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. This year’s anniversary falls on Monday, April 24. However, in the Jewish calendar, the day begins at sunset of the previous day.

Observing Jews will celebrate Remembrance Day beginning at sunset Sunday, April 23rd.

Yad Vashem is dedicated to the history of the Holocaust. Among the displays in the museum were many photographs. A photographer smuggled out the images to raise awareness of the desperate circumstances of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Prior to that, the Nazi propaganda machine had made it seem that the Jews were living happy contented lives in their urban prison.

Most moving for me personally were the photos of the abandoned and starving children who lived their last days on the streets of the ghetto.

View gallery photos from the museum at this website:
http://www.yadvashem.org/museum/holocaust-history-museum/galleries/between-walls-and-fences

One section of the museum displayed re-created street scenes with the help of a streetlight and pushcart taken from the Warsaw Ghetto. A portion of railroad track was even embedded into the floor.

I began to feel as if I were there with the people. I reached a point where it simply became too much.

The statue in my featured photo honors Janusz Korczak. This was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a famous pediatrician, writer, educator, and director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. Although due to his notoriety he was offered sanctuary outside the ghetto, he refused to leave his children.

When the Nazis deported the orphanage children, Korczak and the three other adult caretakers marched to the trains with some two hundred children. An eyewitness described the three-mile procession to the Jewish historian, Emanuel Ringelblum:

“This was not a march to the railway cars—this was an organized, wordless protest against the murder.

“The children marched in rows of four, with Korczak leading them, looking straight ahead, and holding a child’s hand on each side.

“A second column was led by Stefania Wilcynska, the third by Broniatowska, her children carrying blue knapsacks on their backs, and the fourth by Sternfeld, from the boarding school on Twarda Street.”

At Treblinka, the Nazis murdered them all.

Observances of the World Holocaust Remembrance Day
• Watch Yad Vashem’s live broadcast April 23, 2017
Holocaust Remembrance Day Opening Ceremony
8:00 p.m. Israel time; 1:00 p.m. US (EDT)
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/2017/index.asp
• US Observances Available at Various Locations
Check the map on this website:
https://www.ushmm.org/remember/days-of-remembrance/days-of-remembrance-event-map

It is important to remember what happened in the Holocaust. We must never forget. Otherwise we might delude ourselves into thinking humans would never do such terrible things.

In fact, international news reports modern atrocities in many parts of the world. Currently, Christians are the main targets of religious persecution, torture, rape, sex trafficking, and murder.

How will you stay informed about religious persecution in our world today?
How will you stand against religious persecution?

Until next time,
SuZan

© 2017 SuZan Klassen