About International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on the 27th of January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the genocide of one-third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, an attempt to implement its "final solution" to the Jewish question. The 27th of January was chosen to commemorate the date when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army in 1945. If you were Jewish and lived in any country controlled by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, you were targeted for extermination. Six million Jewish people were murdered simply because they were Jewish. Among these six million, 1.5 million were murdered children. The Nazis in Germany and the countries which they conquered targeted five million other “inferior” individuals for murder, including gays, Roma and the handicapped. The Jewish people alone, as an entire people, were marked by the German regime for extinction.
What is the Yellow Light Program?
The Yellow Lights program started in 2022 in our neighbor, New York State, as “New York State Lights Up”. A volunteer committee felt the need to bring greater awareness to International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The volunteers reached out to landmarks in the state, requesting that they light up yellow on Jan 27 to honor the victims of the Holocaust and to shine a spotlight on the lessons of this atrocity.
In 2022, partnering landmarks like the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, Niagara Falls, Penn Station, Grand Central, airport terminals, and prominent bridges throughout neighboring N.Y. joined in lighting up yellow.
In 2023, Governor Lamont added a Connecticut location, the Travelers Towers in Hartford. This January 27, 2024, active volunteers in greater New Haven will add over ten landmarks, as we join this effort to light up yellow.
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Are there other dates on the calendar when people worldwide remember the Holocaust?
There are two additional dates when communities worldwide pause to remember the Holocaust and its lessons. Every year, seven days after the Jewish holiday of Passover is completed, Jewish communities and their neighbors worldwide observe a spring day remembering the Holocaust. Together, the historic Passover story of how Jews fled the Pharoh in ancient Egypt, and the Holocaust events of the twentieth century, reminds all of the the dangerous slope of hatred. This date of remembrance was set in 1951 by Israel’s Congress. In Hebrew, it is called “Yom Hashoah”. The second date that many pause to memorialize the Holocaust is November, 9&10. That date is “Kristallnact”, which in German means “night of the broken glass”. During those two days in 1938, Germans supporting the Nazi party coordinated attacks throughout Germany, harming and murdering Jews in their homes and businesses and shattering glass windows and doors to maim, destroy and loot. The name “Kristallnact” refers to the shattered glass of homes and storefronts that littered Germany’s city streets.
The Memorial: History
The handful of Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust escaped Europe to re-establish lives in communities such as New Haven. During the 1970s, these survivors, their neighbors, and friends worked with then-Mayor Frank Logue to identify the corner of Edgewood Park in New Haven as the home for a Memorial to the Holocaust.
The Memorial was built to remember those who perished, to honor those who helped survivors reclaim new lives, and to thank the New Haven community for welcoming them. The Memorial was financed entirely through private donations of time, expertise, and money. Completed in 1977, the New Haven Holocaust Memorial became the first Holocaust Memorial built on public land in the United States.
Center base in the form of the six-pointed Star of David.
Six center yew trees memorialize the six million murdered Jews.
Ashes from the Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp are buried at the center of the star.
Plaques on the two planters honor rescuers and all those who perished at the hands of the Nazis.
18 plaza markers recognize killing centers in Nazi occupied Europe which affected New haven survivors and their families.
Evergreen groves are reminiscent of the forests where Jewish resisters hid from the Nazis.
6,000 cobblestones invoke the streets of the ghettos into which the Nazis corralled the Jews.
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What is the lesson for us today, that we can learn from our understanding of the Holocaust?
Eli Weisel, a famous Holocaust survivor and Nobel author, warned that to forget the Holocaust is like murdering its victims twice. The lesson to us is: Pause to remember the victims. As we pause, confirm our own moral compass, recognizing how hate can morph into what became the murder of six million.
Why is the yellow color selected?
When the Nazi German government targeted Jews for persecution and murder, they began by making all Jews wear yellow Stars of David on their clothes so they could be easily identified. Yellow is a powerful reminder of the Holocaust. In Jewish homes, Memorial candles are traditionally lit to remember ancestors on the day of their death. Victims of the Holocaust were murdered. There are no graves or records of where or when they died. Many Jewish families and their friends light a yellow Memorial Candle in their memory on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yellow, the color of sunshine, also telegraphs hope. It is a reminder that we hope, that by remembering the Holocaust, we say “never again” to genocide.
Why are so many landmarks around New Haven lighting up?
New Haven has a special connection to the Holocaust. Survivors who resettled in our area dreamed of creating a memorial sculpture and plaza to remember the victims as well as the courageous neighbors in Europe who, on pain of their own death, helped to save those who survived.
How can I learn more about our community’s special connection to the Holocaust and its lessons?
New Haveners built the first Holocaust Memorial in the United States erected on public land. Designed and constructed entirely through private donations, this Memorial represents our community’s commitment to preserving the story of the Holocaust and affirming its strong message. In 2016, children of Holocaust survivors who live in our community completed a documentary telling the extraordinary story of how this “first in the US” Memorial was built. Titled “People Forget, New Haven Remembers”, it includes testimony from four Holocaust survivors who reestablished their lives in greater New Haven. Click the link above to watch "People Forget, New Haven Remembers".
How can my building light up next year, if we are interested?