Yad Vashem – 21 abril 2017

Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day is a national day of commemoration in Israel for the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The central state ceremony marking the start of Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day in Israel will be held at Yad Vashem on Sunday night, 23 April. The ceremony is held in the presence of the President of the State of Israel and the Prime Minister, dignitaries, survivors, children of survivors and their families, together with the general public. Six torches, representing the six million murdered Jews, will be lit by survivors.

This year, Yad Vashem will provide a live feed of the ceremony with simultaneous translation to English during the entire ceremony (except during the Torchlighter films where English subtitles are used).

The theme of this year’s ceremony will be “Restoring Their Identities: The Fate of the Individual During the Holocaust”. Every victim was an entire world. Every person carried a story – the legacy of a community, of experiences, of the spirit of a family and of a future, of names, dreams and loves brutally cut short. In the powerful words of Abel Jacob Herzberg, a Dutch survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: “It is not that six million Jews were murdered. Rather, there were six million murders, and in each case one Jew was murdered.”

Restoring the victims’ identities by documenting, remembering, researching and educating not only commemorates that which was lost, but also makes a substantial contribution to shaping a new and better future. With the passage of time, as we move further from the Holocaust era, bonding in this way with specific individuals from the Holocaust enables us to gain insights that helps shape our own identities and enrich our world.

The broadcast will begin Sunday night, April 23rd at 8:00 PM Israel time and can be accessed through the link: http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/2017/broadcast.asp .