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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME 3 AGAINST SILENCE BY ELIE WIESEL 3 I CANNOT FORGET 4 A NUMBER 5 EL MALEH RACHAMIM 6 MOURNER S KADDISH 6 WHO WILL TELL 7 WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE MEMORIES FROM ANOTHER WORLD 10 SAVED 11 FORMS OF FORGETTING 11 YIZKOR BY ABBA KOVNER 12 QUOTES AGAINST FORGETTING 14 ELIE WIESEL ON BEARING WITNESS 15 9 HOLOCAUST MEMORY CONTINUES BUT KNOWLEDGE IS FADING 17 ERASING THE JEW FROM HOLOCAUST MEMORY 19 GREAT LEADERS SPEAK WITH COURAGE A TRIBUTE TO ELIE WIESEL 22 JERUSALEM HEART OF OUR HEART SOUL OF OUR SOUL HATIKVAH 25 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org 24

INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME The biblical narrative in the book of Exodus introduces the prototype of the Nazis and other would be genociders of the nation of Israel Amalek a ruthless enemy with no common border with the Israelites killed and maimed the weakest among the Jews in a surprise attack God warns His people Zachor al Tishkach Remember do not forget That warning echoes loudly in our time There are thousands of memorials wreath laying ceremonies pious speeches moments of silence and political proclamations meant to ensure that at least for a few minutes many will remember But the facts on the ground warn us that we are forgetting how it all began with unchallenged words and hate We forget the cultural and sports elites physicians lawyers pundits and businessmen in Germany and across Europe and the Americas who were eager to appease Hitler to collude with the Nazis and who remained indifferent to the growing threats and suffering of the Jews But it s not just forgetting the details of the past perhaps that s just part of human nature More ominous are the growing signs that much of the world today is remembering to forget the tough lessons and warnings from the hate that led to the murder of Europe s Jews We welcome you to our annual Yom HaShoah memorial program as we come together to take moments out of our own lives to reflect upon the past the present and the future of Holocaust memory Our words are the words of the witness as we ourselves become witnesses Committed to hear to listen to inherit and to transmit again and again not on one day but every day Not for one victim but for all the victims Indeed all the victims were not Jews but all Jews were victims We the heirs to their memory both as descendants and as fellow members of a people facing the painful legacy of the Shoah in our lives Come take this giant leap with me into the other world the other place where language fails and imagery defies denies man s consciousness and dies upon the altar of insanity Come take this giant leap with me into the other world the other place and trace the eclipse of humanity where children burned while mankind stood by and the universe has yet to learn why the other place that is now challenged in its truth and we are faced with a world that simply does not know AGAINST SILENCE BY ELIE WIESEL Once generations ago somewhere under flaming heavens there existed a walled world a bewitched world accursed world where the ruling hangman changed all the laws of creation the world was upside down dead men lie in the streets and no one turned to look at them children became old wise men overnight bread was more deer than gold and diamonds You are drawn into this world by the singular and weighty details of each survivor story We are drawn to want to know more about what happened inside between the walls what the victims thought and felt before they were led to the slaughter Here you will discover what transpired in the mind and in the soul of Jewish mothers torn from their children and in the mind and soul of the Jewish children who hid like animals These voices I listen to them and they seemed strangely familiar They evoke an engulfed golf universe that was also mine The stories they tell I know them It is strange how similar they are And those days all European Jews went through the same trials Forced to enter the kingdom of night they discovered the same truth 3 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

Before during and after a logical simple immutable structure To approach it we must demonstrate intelligence sensitivity we must know how to listen Let us listen to them What they have to say about their past constitutes the basis of our future fanaticism leads to racism racism to hate hate to murder murder to the death of the species The danger lies in forgetting Forgetting however will not affect only the dead Should it triumph the ashes of yesterday will cover our hopes for tomorrow The voices must be listened to They are the embodiment of a powerful and anguished call to life to faith to salvation I CANNOT FORGET by Alexander Kimel THE AKTION IN THE GHETTO OF ROHATYN MARCH 1942 Do I want to remember The peaceful ghetto before the raid Children shaking like leaves in the wind Mothers searching for a piece of bread Shadows on swollen legs moving with fear No I don t want to remember but how can I forget Do I want to remember the creation of hell The shouts of the raiders enjoying the hunt Cries of the wounded begging for life Faces of mothers carved with pain Hiding children dripping with fear No I don t want to remember but how can I forget Do I want to remember my fearful return Families vanished in the midst of the day The mass grave steaming with vapor of blood Mothers searching for children in vain The pain of the ghetto cuts like a knife No I don t want to remember but how can I forget Do I want to remember the wailing of the night The doors kicked ajar ripped feathers floating the air The night scented with snow melting blood While the compassionate moon is showing the way For the faceless shadows searching for kin No I don t want to remember but I cannot forget Do I want to remember this world upside down Where the departed are blessed with an instant death While the living condemned to a short wretched life 4 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

And a long tortuous journey into unnamed place Converting Living Souls into ashes and gas No I Have to Remember and Never Let You Forget Alexander died Jan 24 2018 of complications from pneumonia He was 91 A NUMBER by Carrie Bacher J3602A4 That s all she was Penned up within the barbed wire I saw her when I journeyed there To Auschwitz She tried to tell me Yet I wouldn t hear The number she explained Takes everything away Beginning with your name A number J3602A4 has whispered her story to me Day by day hour by hour Since I abandoned her grave The agony the dehumanization the loss of dignity the loss of identity To be a number Is the beginning Of Hell She whispers from across the barbed wire Eyes darting from side to side Terrified still a number is the way Jailers begin the torture 5 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

J3602A4 no longer has a name Yet I have named her Chaya Shulamit I see her reflection everytime I look in the mirror She is I I live for both of us EL MALEH RACHAMIM Merciful God who dwells above provide a sure rest upon the Divine Presence s wings amongst of the holy and the pure whose shining resembles the sky s all the souls of the six million Jews victims of the European Holocaust who were murdered slaughtered burnt and exterminated for the Sanctification of the Name by the German Nazi assassins and their helpers from the rest of the peoples Therefore the Master of Mercy will protect them forever from behind the hiding of his wings and will tie their souls with the rope of life The Everlasting is their heritage the Garden of Eden shall be their resting room and they shall rest peacefully upon their lying place they will stand for their fate at the end of days and let us say Amen MOURNER S KADDISH Yitgadal v yitkadash sh mei raba B alma di v ra chirutei v yamlich malchutei b chayeichonuvyomeichon uvchayei d chol beit yisrael ba agala uvizman kariv v im ru amen Amen Y hei sh mei raba m varach l alam ul almei almaya Yitbarach v yishtabach v yitpa ar v yitromamv yitnaseh v yithadar v yit aleh v yit halal sh mei d kud sha B rich hu L eila min kol birchata v shirata tushb chata v nechemata da amiran b alma v im ru amen 6 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

Y hei shlama raba min sh maya v chayim aleinu v al kol yisrael v im ru amen Oseh shalom bimromav hu ya aseh shalom aleinuv al kol yisrael v imru amen Glorified and sanctified be God s great name Throughout the world which He has created according to His will May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days and within the life of the entire House of Israel speedily and soon and say Amen Amen May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity Blessed and praised glorified and exalted extolled and honored adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One blessed be He nbeyond all the blessings and hymns praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world and say Amen May there be abundant peace from heaven and life for us and for all Israel and say Amen He who creates peace in His celestial heights may He create peace for us and for all Israel and say Amen WHO WILL TELL Poem by Zeni Rosenstein an Adopt A Safta Survivor The atrocities that are so painful Years pass and disappear And with them the generation of the horrors Generation of pain and the generation of terror Generation of destruction and disappointment The ship of time of Holocaust s survivors Fades away at a terrifying speed Above the sea of tears blood and sweat Into the terrible oblivion dark nights without sleep Still hearing the cries From the depths of the earth From the mass grave screams are heard They shouted desperately Do not forget nor forgive What remains of them as survivors shall write it as a book for the next generation That you shall never forget the blood that spilled like water from earth crying out to heaven 7 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

For in the passing of time there will be no one to speak We grow old with no one left to tell There is not enough time and it upon us to hurry the painful story to tell Who will tell of pillars collapsed Of the elaborate communities that were erased and families that were murdered there Who will tell of the grim camp who of the history that must be recorded Abandoned by people and forgotten by God That were sent in trains and transported as animals When the door opened gates of hell it was terrible When we got there we saw human skeletons Weak crying and vanished power And all around them sadists are happy and joyful And shouting all the time Death to Jews Destroy us they prayed And I would ask myself always the same question What nourishes joy terrible cruelty My baby sister they murdered And my whole family they eliminated A single memory doesn t remain only pain Shocked I remained brokenhearted With everyone s hate for Germans It pains me to feel alone in the world I do not know where my loved ones are buried Only a few photos attached to stories When I look at photographs of family From the depths of my pain I cry Especially when Yom HaShoah arrives My heart breaks again as if a fresh wound Israel Forever Foundation 8 israelforever org

You who were the victims of the Holocaust In the lines that I write you will have a tombstone of memory Rest in peace and you will always be remembered for the better And I pray that there will be no more such war May God protect his Jewish people from every evil WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE MEMORIES Song Lyrics I m a very tired old and worn out man And my eyes have long been blind Most things that people say to me Just seem to slip my mind Oh but the suffering and painful times that were in years long gone Are still as clear upon my memory as the numbers on my arm What will become of all the memories Are they to scatter with the dust in the breeze And who will stand before the world knowing what to say When the very last survivor fades away As I hold my grandson close to me And his fingers trace the pattern of my tears He asks me Grandpa Tell me why do you cry What is it that you fear Oh and I tell him there once was another child Who smelled as sweet and felt as warm But he was taken from before my eyes And only I remain to mourn What will become of all the memories Are they to scatter with the dust in the breeze And who will stand before a world that now wishes to deny Will they believe in someone who never heard the cries 9 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

What can I say or do to make things change Time has a way of passing by so fast And as fleeting shadow no one will recall The faces of the past What will become of all the memories Are they to scatter with the dust in the breeze Yet one thought gives me comfort it s all that I have left I know that God and the children They won t forget We won t forget Please Don t forget To watch the video of this song https www youtube com watch v K466r nKAcQ FROM ANOTHER WORLD by Sonia Weitz I come from another world I come from a universe where my people were condemned to torture and death for no other reason than because they were Jewish Of course not all the victims were Jewish but all the Jews were victims It is true that the Holocaust was a very special moment This event has shown mankind at its lowest where a civilized cultivated nation has created a mechanism of destruction of another people And of course when the war started immediately we lost We lost our homes We lost our way of life We lost all our everything that we owned everything that we all our hopes We could not believe it We could not believe that cultured people would set out to murder other people men women children babies There is in an entire history there has never been a similar moment in which one could say the world will never be the same after that There is something in man There is something in our humanity which is made out of the best things and of the worst things It s like like the concept of God in whose name the most beautiful things are done but never have so many people been killed in the name of anything else What would I be like if I d had go through that and lost the family lost your home lost everything And then you re finally clear of it And your friends that you ve been praying were going to come and they come And thank God they do come And and they don t really care I like to say that we chose life that we went on We mourned We cried And then we went on to some kind of a normal productive life Of course we try to tell our story to the younger generation The survivors are diminishing in number every day In another 10 years there won t be any survivors left And we feel that by conveying our message we make witnesses out of those who hear us And hopefully they will always remember what happened to us and make sure that it won t happen again 10 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

SAVED by Elie Wiesel 1982 These days one says Auschwitz and goes on speaking of other things or one makes a passing remark about Treblinka and continues doing other things There was a time when we used to tremble literally before uttering those names Nowadays one sees them again and again in magazines on TV at the theater at the movies It seems they have even made musical comedy of the Holocaust Thus we are trapped We must speak teach analyze educate compare documents and testimonies We must serve as living integral links between the dead and future Generations so as to save the dead from death and the others from forgetfulness in French De nos jours on dit Auschwitz et on continue parler d autres choses on fait une remarque en passant sur Treblinka et on continue faire d autres choses Il fut un temps o l on tremblait litt ralement avant de prononcer ces noms Aujourd hui on les retrouve encore et encore dans les magazines la t l vision au th tre au cin ma Il semble qu on ait m me fait de l Holocauste une com die musicale Nous sommes donc pris au pi ge Nous devons parler enseigner analyser duquer comparer les documents et les t moignages Nous devons servir de lien vivant et int gral entre les morts et les g n rations futures afin de sauver les morts de la mort et les autres de l oubli FORMS OF FORGETTING The facts the faces The screams the tears The broken souls never mended The silence the darkness the endless fear The push the insult the spit in the face The indelible mark of a badge of shame and nightmares never to be erased No words no strength no stranger to tell Of the horrors witnessed within that hell Too graphic too violent too painful to recall And certainly too much to ask another to bear on their shoulders in their consciousness as much as in their hearts The messages twisted for modern rebirth The particular cast aside for the sake of the universal In which the Jew is erased again Never again is now It is forever Never means Never 11 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

Nearly one third of all Americans 31 and over 4 in 10 millennials 41 believe that the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust was 2 million or less Almost half of U S adults 45 and millennials 49 cannot name one of the over 40 000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust More than 4 in 10 people do not know what Auschwitz was Millennials are even less familiar with Auschwitz and Birkenau is believed to be the name of the beer Seven out of 10 Americans 70 say fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust than they used to and many believe the Holocaust should be forgotten That it is nothing but a nuisance to learn about when there are other more recent genocides Or Worse the war against the Jews does not interest anyone unless it isn t about the Jews at all What are you doing to make a difference What can we do Throughout the year we have an opportunity again and again to find ways we can interject facts and information about the Holocaust not only into our own lives and deepening our own knowledge but also that of the communities around us We have the benefit of a creative mind With our many resources and passions it is the EveryJew who can make a difference We can each find ways to be a part of all different types of learning opportunities where we can examine the history of human experience and its implication on our lives today Never forget is beautiful in our memorial ceremonies but never forget must also be a part of our daily lives YIZKOR BY ABBA KOVNER Abba Kovner was a source of great strength to many Jews in the most trying period of Jewish history He led the uprising against the Nazis in the Vilna Ghetto After the Ghetto fell he fled to the forest and fought with the partisans Following the war he masterminded the poisoning of nazi officers in prison in Germany He then made aliyah and fought in Israel s war of Independence After the war he lived on kibbutz and went on to become a noted poet and received the Israel Prize for Literature in 1970 He lived for the Jewish people with courage and his words live on in our hearts as a call toward a collective responsibility Let us remember our brothers and our sisters the homes in the cities and houses in the villages The streets of the town that bustled like rivers And the inn standing solitary on the way The old man with his etched out features The mother in her sweater The girl with the plaits And the children The thousands of communities of Israel with their families The whole Jewish people That was brought to the slaughter on the soil 12 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

of Europe by the German destroyer The man who screamed out suddenly and died while screaming The woman who clutched her baby to her breast and whose arms tumbled down The baby whose fingers groped for her mother s nipple which was blue and cold The legs the legs that sought refuge and there was no escape And those who clenched their hands into fists The fist that gripped the steel The steel that was the weapon of the vision the despair and the revolt And those with staunch hearts and those with open eyes And those who sacrificed themselves without being able to save others We shall remember the day The day in its noon the sun That rose over the stake of blood The skies that stood high and silent We shall remember the mounds of ash beneath flowering parks Let the living remember his dead for behold they are here Before us Behold their eyes cast around and about So let us not rest May our lives be worthy of their memory 13 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

QUOTES AGAINST FORGETTING There is a profound difference between history and memory History is his story an event that happened sometime else to someone else Memory is my story something that happened to me and is part of who I am History is information Memory by contrast is part of identity I can study the history of other peoples cultures and civilizations They deepen my knowledge and broaden my horizons But they do not make a claim on me They are the past as part Memory is the past as present as it lives on in me Without memory there can be no identity Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z l To remember is indeed an imperative and a duty particularly in light of the growing campaign to forget and make forgotten And yet remembering is only one part of the task that rests upon us Your first duty is to live to assume an ordered life a married life to establish a Jewish home and a Jewish family This will most definitely underscore Hitler s defeat The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson To remember the past To live in the present To trust in the future Abba Kovner How many candles can we light to make their brief existence significant Is there any number enough or just one emotion and a lifetime of dedication How can I perpetuate their six million dreams into my own Adina Frydman March of the living alumni To each of them I will give a name and a monument to every man to every woman to every child And to each of them I will give a name and a monument To those who fought and to those who had no way to fight To those who saying on the way to their deaths And to those who are silent We pay tribute to their lives not only to their deaths Aviva Goldberg Sometimes when I hear a train pass by I am their return to the tracks that chilled my soul Is that the whistle of the train or the screams of the helpless Sometimes I pray for silence Elisa Korman How can we take in what is unfathomable It is like trying to swallow glass or breathe without air Robin Shear 14 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

ELIE WIESEL ON BEARING WITNESS Address to the United Nations on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau Mr President of the General Assembly Mr Secretary General my friend excellencies The man who stands before you this morning feels deeply privileged A teacher and writer he speaks and writes as a witness to a crime committed in the heart of European Christendom and civilization by a brutal dictatorial regime a crime of unprecedented cruelty in which all segments of government participated When speaking about that era of darkness the witness encounters difficulties His words become obstacles rather than vehicles he writes not with words but against words For there are no words to describe what the victims felt when death was the norm and life a miracle Still whether you know it or not his memory is part of yours I speak to you as a son of an ancient people the only people of antiquity to have survived antiquity the Jewish people which throughout much of its history has endured exile and oppression yet has never given up hope of redemption As a young adolescent he saw what no human being should have to see the triumph of political fanaticism and ideological hatred for those who were different He saw multitudes of human beings humiliated isolated tormented tortured and murdered They were overwhelmingly Jews but there were others And those who committed these crimes were not vulgar underworld thugs but men with high government academic industrial and medical positions in Germany In recent years that nation has become a true democracy But the question remains open In those dark years what motivated so many brilliant and committed public servants to invent such horrors By its scope and magnitude by its sheer weight of numbers by the impact of so much humiliation and pain in spite of being the most documented tragedy in the annals of history Auschwitz still defies language and understanding Let me evoke those times Babies used as target practice by SS men Adolescents condemned never to grow old Parents watching their children thrown into burning pits Immense solitude engulfing an entire people Infinite despair haunting our days and our dreams even 60 years later When did what we so poorly call the Holocaust begin In 1938 during Kristallnacht In 1939 perhaps when a German ship the St Louis with more than a thousand German Jewish refugees aboard was turned back from America s shores Or was it when the first massacres occurred in Babi Yar We still ask What was Auschwitz an end or a beginning an apocalyptic consequence of centuries old bigotry and hatred or was it the final convulsion of demonic forces in human nature A creation parallel to God s a world with its own antinomian United Nations of people of different nationalities traditions cultures socio economic spheres speaking many languages clinging to a variety of faiths and memories They were grown ups or young but inside that world there were no children and no grandparents they had already perished As I have said many times Not all victims were Jewish but all Jews were victims For the first time in recorded history to be Jewish became a crime Their birth became their death sentence Correction Jewish children were condemned to die even before they were born What the enemy sought to attain was to put an end to Jewish history what he wanted was a new world implacably irrevocably devoid of Jews Hence Auschwitz Ponar Treblinka Belzec Chelmno and Sobibor dark factories of death erected for the Final Solution Killers came there to kill and victims to die 15 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

That was Auschwitz an executioner s ideal of a kingdom of absolute evil and malediction with its princes and beggars philosophers and theologians politicians and artists a place where to lose a piece of bread meant losing life and a smile from a friend another day of promise At the time the witness tried to understand he still does not How was such calculated evil such bottomless and pointless cruelty possible Had Creation gone mad Had God covered His face A religious person cannot conceive of Auschwitz either with or without God But what about man How could intelligent educated or simple law abiding citizens fire machine guns at hundreds of children and their parents and in the evening enjoy a cadence by Schiller a partita by Bach Turning point or watershed that tremendous catastrophe which has traumatized history has forever changed man s perception of responsibility toward other human beings The sad terrible fact is that had the Western nations intervened when Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia and Austria had America accepted more refugees from Europe had Britain allowed more Jews to return to their ancestral land had the Allies bombed the railways leading to Birkenau our tragedy might have been avoided its scope surely diminished This shameful indifference we must remember just as we must remember to thank the few heroic individuals who like Raoul Wallenberg risked their lives to save Jews We shall also always remember the armies that liberated Europe and the soldiers who liberated the death camps the Americans in Buchenwald the Russians in Auschwitz and the British in Belsen But for many victims they all came too late That we must also remember When the American Third Army liberated Buchenwald there was no joy in our heart only pain We did not sing we did not celebrate We had just enough strength to recite the Kaddish And now years later you who represent the entire world community listen to the words of the witness Like Jeremiah and Job we could have cried and cursed the days dominated by injustice and violence We could have chosen vengeance We did not We could have chosen hate We did not Hatred is degrading and vengeance demeaning They are diseases Their history is dominated by death The Jewish witness speaks of his people s suffering as a warning He sounds the alarm so as to prevent these things being done He knows that for the dead it is too late for them abandoned by God and betrayed by humanity victory came much too late But it is not too late for today s children ours and yours It is for their sake alone that we bear witness It is for their sake that we are duty bound to denounce anti Semitism racism and religious or ethnic hatred Those who today preach and practice the cult of death those who use suicide terrorism the scourge of this new century must be tried and condemned for crimes against humanity Suffering confers no privileges it is what one does with suffering that matters Yes the past is in the present but the future is still in our hands Those who survived Auschwitz advocate hope not despair generosity not rancor or bitterness gratitude not violence We must be engaged we must reject indifference as an option Indifference always helps the aggressor never his victims And what is memory if not a noble and necessary response to and against indifference But will the world ever learn Original Speech By Elie Wiesel at the United Nations Bearing Witness 60 Years On For the first time in the history of the United Nations the General Assembly commemorated the victims of the Holocaust in a special session on January 24 2005 Wiesel is the author of Night and 57 other books written since his liberation from Buchenwald in 1945 https israelforever org interact blog elie_wiesel_bearing_witness 16 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

HOLOCAUST MEMORY CONTINUES BUT KNOWLEDGE IS FADING By Dr Elana Yael Heideman Holocaust memory has shifted dramatically again and again throughout the last 70 years Survivors academics historians and educators have worked tirelessly to incorporate the Holocaust into educational systems around the world From personal memory to comparative analysis the Holocaust has indeed become an integrated dimension of history civil discourse legislation even resulting in contention between competing narratives or comparative suffering which sadly diminish the truthfulness of the Holocaust and its uniqueness Elie Wiesel played a significant role in the various transformations as he dedicated himself to the transmission of memory and meaning of the Holocaust experience and significance for humanity He was committed to the distinction between particularism and universalism and how each possesses its own value in ensuring that the many lessons of the Holocaust are translated for future generations Each year many Jews face the challenges of International Holocaust Memorial Day vs Yom HaShoah but there are indeed many benefits each day of memory could serve each of these aspects of its meaning And in fact we do need both A day for Jews to remember need not lose significance annually and eternally as our day to come together as a global Jewish community to remember our brethren so senselessly persecuted tortured murdered for being Jews We must remember the names of the survivors we have met the stories we have inherited We must continue to ensure that the Jew is not erased from the internationalization and subsequent generalization of the Holocaust International Holocaust Memorial Day can be an aide or preventative measure to Holocaust denial and the protection of truth but so too can Holocaust education In best case scenarios the educator is informed well read and passionate about finding ways to connect They are unwilling to reshape the Holocaust experience away from the aspects of its history that center around the extermination of the Jews They use facts personal stories and open discussions with their learners to help them open their own minds to the painful truth Too much of Holocaust memory however is transmitted via mainstream viral messages that barely delve beyond the surface of the reality of that hell on earth Whatever portal of access one might have learning about the Holocaust should be a lifelong process but that happens primarily for those who are willing to bend their expectations and explore the world of humanity immersed in inhumanity We have to suspend our belief that we have heard it all that we know enough Because after more than 30 years since immersing myself in this world I can only say again and again how much more there is to know so much more to learn from in our efforts to save humanity protect memory ensure our history and heritage are passed down for future generations just as our biblical tales have done for 3000 years It is up to each one of us to continuously ask ourselves the tough questions not just once a year but whenever the association might arise Only deep understanding will allow us to overcome the distorted lies of the revisionists and distortionists the outright deniers and the Anti Zionists anti Israel associationists who have successfully morphed Israel into a newer version of Holocaust denial and of Antisemitism in a professionalized form As I embark once again to Poland to guide the grounds of our ancestral communities since destroyed and the ground soaked with their blood I thought to propose a challenge to all of you You have been to the museums you have studied in schools you have read several memoirs or novels you have seen all the top films Do you have a basic working knowledge of the Holocaust 17 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

At a recent presentation to Anglo young professionals in Givat Shmuel as always I opened up the discussion by asking them to ask me questions of their own questions burning within questions they may even have been too embarrassed to ask before All those in attendance were well educated having learned about the Holocaust in more than one setting and opportunity many having been to Poland on the March of the Living or other trips What I discovered was not only the extent to which some of the more crucial facts about the Holocaust so easily get lost as time passes but also that the access to answers to the difficult questions are just as important as the basic for they drive our understanding of our collective responsibility to carry on the memory in a meaningful way beyond lighting the candle or reading the name beyond the poem or the artwork beyond the emotional agony we feel as our hearts are wrenched by each story of suffering https israelforever org interact blog Holocaust_memory_continues_but_knowledge_is_fading 18 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

ERASING THE JEW FROM HOLOCAUST MEMORY By Dr Elana Yael Heideman On January 27 1945 Auschwitz Birkenau was liberated On that day Soviet troops entered the very gates that had confined the freedoms of so many They witnessed the physical condition of surviving inmates and the horrific living space in which the prisoners were forced to sleep eat and attempt to retain a semblance of their humanity in the shadow of death living through a torturous reality unbeknownst to mankind before or since The liberators of what became known as the most prominent mechanism of Nazi evil discovered only scattered remnants of evidence left behind the blown up remains of gas chambers and crematorium mounds of clothing and precious items that once belonged to Jews who had long since perished They saw before their eyes the living dead The Holocaust however did not end the day Auschwitz was liberated By then most of its primary victims the Jews of Europe had been gassed shot or forced onto death marches The methodical persecution dehumanization and murder of the sole population targeted for extermination by the Nazis continued for another three months As years pass the memory of this historical event has begun to fade diminished under the weight of Holocaust denial distortions displacement of blame illegitimate comparisons Holocaust fatigue and most recently the return of traditional anti Jewish tropes that either discard the significance of the Holocaust or call for a renewal of its goals As a result countless organizations have embarked on educational efforts and campaigns to attempt to reframe the Holocaust as a collective human experience with universal implications that unfortunately cast aside the identity and memory of the Jews for whom the machine of murder was created A major milestone toward the international affirmation of Holocaust memory was achieved in 2005 when after years of lobbying January 27th was chosen as the date to recognize and remember the victims that suffered under the hands of the Nazis For the Jews who witnessed the miracle of their liberation as Marta Wise a 10 year old Slovakian Jew when she arrived at Birkenau in November 1944 shared To me as far as I am concerned the 27th of January is my second birthday because that s when we got another lease at life The date of the liberation of Auschwitz held a particular universal significance that resounded with the United Nations the body that set the day of international memory into place along with the 1 1 million Jews processed for extinction more than 100 000 prisoners of war Poles Gypsies people with disabilities and other minorities also died in Auschwitz from starvation disease and forced labor More than any other locale Auschwitz has come to represent the horrors of the Holocaust in which more than 6 million Jews were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany and its allies Its name has become synonymous with the Nazi genocide as it reflected the meticulous German effort to exterminate Europe s Jews a plan dubbed the Final Solution The camps were the most notorious in a system that Germany built and operated in occupied Poland home to Europe s largest pre war Jewish population and at the heart of a railway network that allowed the Nazis to easily transport Jews there from elsewhere in Europe Thus Auschwitz Birkenau remains a symbol of the systematic legal campaign as well as the social and political mechanisms that made the extermination of Jews possible Many roads led to the creation and success of this one camp whose methods of murder had been perfected by each phase of the Holocaust that preceded it from the ghettos to the killing pits to the extermination centers where Jews and only Jews were processed through the machine of death But is Auschwitz Birkenau more important for us to remember than Treblinka Sobibor Belzec Chelmno Majdanek And what is to be told of Bergen Belsen Buchenwald Mathausen International Holocaust Remembrance Day was an initiative of the State of Israel under the leadership of then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel Silvan Shalom as the head of the delegation of Israel to the United Nations The vision for this day was twofold to protect the memory and to remember those who were massacred during the Holocaust The second goal was to demonstrate a global commitment to educate future generations of the horrors of the Holocaust in cooperation with international bodies who understood the uniqueness of this historical event As Shalom proclaimed to the United Nations on that day This year and every year we must reassert our commitment 19 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

to human rights We must also go beyond remembrance and make sure that new generations know this history We must apply the lessons of the Holocaust to today s world And we must do our utmost so that all peoples may enjoy the protection and rights for which the United Nations stands By extracting it from the Israeli Jewish Yom HaShoah historically associated with Jewish heroism as it marked the onset of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising the international day would assist the global population to consider its significance for all humanity An unfortunate result however is that the Holocaust is being internationalized universalized at the detriment of its Jewish victims the rights to Jewish memory and the dignity of the Jewish world that lives on today One might assume that International Holocaust Remembrance Day would be a day to teach the uniqueness of the Holocaust to explore and inspire discussions of ways to prevent the same hate from rising again But that assumption would be wrong The two most prominent threats to the integrity of Holocaust memory are becoming increasingly evident First the Jewish identity of the victims has been diminished under the generalized reference to 11 million victims expanded to include the various groups deemed inferior by the Nazis In a collective and universalized memory the experience of suffering under conditions of war forced labor and tyranny cannot and should not be equated with the unique circumstances of momentary survival and the deterioration of the human condition to which Jews and particularly Jews were forced to endure Second the rights of memory of the experience are being shifted away from the Jews Terminology is being altered to the point where many are finding it necessary to say the Jewish Holocaust as if there was any other kind Ceremonies are increasingly focused on simplified reflections of an experience that was in truth very specific to Jews Instead of international remembrance it would seem that we are witnessing international de Judaization of Holocaust memory More and more the message of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is being altered to meet the political and social trends of the day It is being altered by people who did not witness the selections of Jews did not smell the stench of burning bodies and did not witness the ash falling from the sky And while International Holocaust Remembrance Day was intended to resist the rising trends of Holocaust denial a disconnect from the Jewish identity of the Holocaust makes it even easier to continue to alter truth that the witnesses have sought so hard to preserve As Elie Wiesel once said about those who perished to forget them would be akin to killing them twice So too is forgetting the reason they were targeted for the endless litany of tortures imposed by the Nazis for the sole reason of being born as a Jew For this reason each year this international anniversary of collective memory arrives and Jews worldwide feel conflicted How can we ensure the memory of our people our suffering is perpetuated without allowing the uniqueness of the Jewish experience under the Nazis to be minimized diminished eroded by the universality of this commemorate day Moreover for those who honor Yom HaShoah as the Jewish day of remembrance for our brethren so brutally beaten starved shot and gassed how do we balance between two days of memory One crucial step is making sure that The Holocaust is internationally remembered and its lessons learned by all that it is not a holocaust but rather The Holocaust the targeted methodical attempt to exterminate the Jewish people borne from a long history of Jewish hatred that so deeply rooted in the psyche of much of humanity who turn a blind eye to the ongoing persecution dehumanization and murder of Jews There have sadly been other genocides in before and since targeting other nations for elimination But none have been as scientifically executed and cold blooded the result of socially accepted clear headed rationales that culminated in a plan for the deliberate widespread killing within an otherwise civilized society 20 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

Over a decade since its inception this day of memory is increasingly marked on social media through hashtag campaigns the sharing of stories memories videos and photos of family members long since perished In Israel the day is marked by presentations by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs on the main trends and incidents of Antisemitism over the previous year thereby emphasizing the correlation between the persecutions of the past with those of the present day around the globe The videos and graphics that are circulating increase the potential for Holocaust remembrance of the uniquely Jewish experience to be viral and central to the significance of marking this day of the liberation of Auschwitz But is this enough In doing so we all must ask ourselves the voices of the survivors what do they tell us that we are forgetting in our mainstream commemoration efforts They speak of unimaginable horrors of screams anguish fear and death that transformed the human condition for Jews in particular They teach us of songs in the darkness of the faith that persevered even when in doubt and of a belief in our own humanity our own rights and our dream of eventually living free as Jews They share the endless pursuit of life in spite of it all and of the capability for good and evil that rests within each one of us just as they remind us of the dangers of hate and silence of which we are all also capable They cry out and say how did you the people of the world allow this to happen and they beg not to be forgotten in the scope of an internationalized universalized day of memory for all the unfortunate victims of genocide war persecution On International Holocaust Remembrance Day while it is appropriate to honor all the victims of Nazism it is incumbent upon us not to allow the Jewish story humanity memory to be cast aside just as we cannot allow it to be misappropriated or abused for any one political aim When this day of remembrance has been concluded we must always remember that our work has also not reached its end For if Holocaust Memorial Day is a day to reaffirm our commitment to human rights it must also be a day to reaffirm Jewish rights and the right to Jewish memory of the unique Jewish suffering imposed by the Nazis their collaborators and the silent world that allowed the Holocaust to occur https israelforever org interact blog erasing_the_jew_from_holocaust_memory 21 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

GREAT LEADERS SPEAK WITH COURAGE A TRIBUTE TO ELIE WIESEL by Ambassador Ron Dermer Elie Wiesel was a great man He was great not because of his indefatigable work to memorialize the Holocaust He was great not because of his prodigious talents as a writer or his profound wisdom as a thinker He was great not because of his sublime character which somehow combined the dignity of nobility with the humility of a person of the deepest faith Elie Wiesel was certainly all of these things He was a man of many many virtues But what made him truly great was that he possessed the one virtue that Winston Churchill said made all the other virtues possible courage And Elie Wiesel s courage was the courage to speak truth to power We are admonished never to forget But to never forget evil is not enough We must also fight evil And that fight requires more than memory It requires courage It requires the ability to use whatever power or influence we have to confront evil Dr Martin Luther King famously said that the arc of history bends towards justice I hope that statement is true But one thing I am certain of is that if that arc does indeed bend towards justice it doesn t bend on its own It is bent by people like Dr King and Elie Wiesel by giants who serve in their generation as the conscience of mankind We live in a world where too many good people find too many ways to justify silence and inaction in the face of evil They convince themselves that now is not the time to trade in their status power and influence They delude themselves into thinking that these valuable commodities must be hoarded so that they can be marshalled to do even greater good in the future Elie Wiesel had been too close to evil to fall prey to such dangerous illusions He knew that these commodities are only valuable if they are spent in time He knew that the failure to speak and act against evil would both strengthen evil and corrode the soul Like the prophet Nathan who rebuked the beloved King David like the prophet Elisha who rebuked the wicked King Jehoram and like other prophets of the Jewish people Elie Wiesel was the Great Rebuker of our times Over 25 years ago he stood here at the opening of this very museum and pleaded with President Clinton to do something anything to stop the bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia A decade earlier he told President Reagan that his place was not at Bitburg Before his passing Elie Wiesel sat in a gallery of Congress to listen to the Prime Minister of the one and only Jewish state speak about a threat to the survival of our people of Elie s people Sometimes people listened to Elie Sometimes they didn t But Elie always spoke For him party never trumped principle friendship never provided absolution and status was never an excuse for silence What mattered to him was the truth no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient it was for him to speak or for us to hear As an Ambassador of Israel who had the privilege of meeting this giant among men Elie Wiesel was both a man of the world and a man of his people someone who realized as precious few do that to be a man of the world you must first and foremost be a man of your people 22 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

I will always be there for Israel he would tell me each time we spoke or met And Elie Wiesel was always there He was there for Israel He was there for the Jewish people He was there for all peoples So let us remember this great man today A man who witnessed so much darkness and yet spread so much light A man who saw the most twisted timber of humanity but who possessed a courage and clarity that pierced through like the straightest of arrows A man who was a proud son of Israel and who made all of Israel proud May the memory of Elie Wiesel never be forgotten and always be blessed https israelforever org blog great_leaders_speak_with_courage_tribute_to_elie_wiesel 23 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

JERUSALEM HEART OF OUR HEART SOUL OF OUR SOUL By Elie Wiesel In light of the recent United Nations resolution against Israel we must remember Nobel Laureate and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel Although he passed away July 2 2016 he continues to live on through his lessons and his legacy For Elie remembering was the key His words on Jerusalem our eternal capital ring true today as they always have and always will For me the Jew that I am Jerusalem is above politics It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture and not a single time in the Koran Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem To many theologians it IS Jewish history to many poets a source of inspiration It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time it is not the first time it is a homecoming The first song I heard was my mother s lullaby about and for Jerusalem Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again when under Jordanian occupation Jews regardless of nationality were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall the last vestige of Solomon s temple It is important to remember had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab Clearly while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem Today for the first time in history Jews Christians and Muslims all may freely worship at their shrines And contrary to certain media reports Jews Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory What is the solution Pressure will not produce a solution Is there a solution There must be there will be Why tackle the most complex and sensitive problem prematurely Why not first take steps which will allow the Israeli and Palestinian communities to find ways to live together in an atmosphere of security Why not leave the most difficult the most sensitive issue for such a time Jerusalem must remain the world s Jewish spiritual capital not a symbol of anguish and bitterness but a symbol of trust and hope As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said Everything in this world has a heart the heart itself has its own heart Jerusalem is the heart of our heart the soul of our soul https israelforever org interact blog jerusalem_heart_of_our_heart_soul_of_our_soul 24 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org

HATIKVAH Kol od balevav penimah Nefesh Yehudi homiyah Ulfa ate mizrach kadimah Ayin leTziyon tzofiyah Od lo avdah tikvatenu Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim Lihyotam chofshi be artzenu Eretz Tziyon v Yerushalayim As long as in the heart within The soul of a Jew still yearns And onward towards the ends of the east an eye still gazes toward Zion Our hope is not yet lost The hope of two thousand years To be a free nation in our land The land of Zion and Jerusalem 25 Israel Forever Foundation israelforever org