The History of Holocaust Remembrance Day, by Elon Gilad, Haaretz, April 27, 2014
The Holocaust is marked in Israel on the 27th day of the Jewish month of Nisan. This date was reached after much deliberation.
The Holocaust spanned years, from before the start of World War II in 1939 and through to its end in 1945. As Jews and other victims of Nazi brutality were harassed, tortured and murdered on every single day of the year, it was impossible to single out a single date as the "most appropriate" Holocaust Remembrance Day. Also, due to the unprecedented nature of the horror – industrialized genocide – the question arose of how to mark the Holocaust on the chosen day.
The following describes how Israel and other nations went about answering this question in the aftermath of this calamity.
The systematic destruction of Jewish life in Europe became widely known before the war's end, but it was only when the war ended and the death camps were liberated by Allied troops in 1945 that the true dimensions of the calamity became apparent.
In 1947, the Chief Rabbinate of Mandatory Palestine set up a committee to think of possible dates for an annual memorial. This committee thought the date should be related to the annihilation of Warsaw’s Jewish community, which before the war was 500,000 persons strong and the second-largest Jewish community in the world (after New York).
One proposed date was the 8th of Av, because on that date in 1942, the Nazis began sending Warsaw’s Jews to death camps. Another was the date of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which began on the eve of Passover in 1943. Both dates were rejected: Av 8 is a day before Tisha B'av, a day of mourning over the destruction of the Temple, and the holiday of Passover was not considered an appropriate time.
In December 1949, the Rabbinate decreed that Holocaust Remembrance Day would be the 10th of Tevet, a day of mourning and fasting commemorating the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia in the 6th century BCE.
The first Holocaust Remembrance Day took place on December 28th, 1949, a year-and-a-half after Israel's independence. The ashes and bones of thousands of Jews were brought over from the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp near Munich. They were placed in a crypt, together with decorated Torah scrolls, in a Jerusalem cemetery. A rabbi appointed by the Rabbinate presided over the religious ceremony. The public was invited to an overnight vigil at the crypt and in the morning a prayer service and Talmudic study session were held in honor of the victims.
That evening, a special radio program on the Holocaust was broadcast at 9:30 P.M.
The following year, in December 1950, some 70 ceremonies were held around the country. The events were organized by the Rabbinate, organizations of former European Jewish communities and the Israeli Defense Forces. They mostly took the form of funerals, in which artifacts and the ashes and bones of the dead brought over from Europe were interred. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, did not have a special ceremony.
But in March 1951, the Knesset decided to take an active role, and set about choosing a new date for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Three were proposed: again 10 Tevet; Passover; and September 1, the date the war broke out on.
In April the Knesset approved the 27th of Nissan, a week after Passover. It remains the date until today.
Nonetheless, the Rabbinate instructed people to continue observing the 10th of Tevet as a memorial day for Holocaust victims whose date of death is unknown. Though over the years the association of this day with the Holocaust diminished, it is still observed in that way.
Thus on Nissan 27, which in 1951 worked out to be May 3 (the Jewish and Gregorian calendars do not coincide), a Holocaust Remembrance Day took shape as a more official, and less religious, ceremony.
The main event remained at the Holocaust Crypt on Mount Zion, but in addition to the religious services, Zionist leaders gave speeches. The Israel Post Office issued a special commemorative envelope and a bronze statue of Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, was unveiled in Yad Mordechai, a kibbutz named for the hero. The Israeli government also held a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in New York.
The following year the events included planting a memorial forest and lighting six beacons in memory of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis. The beacons have become a regular feature of Holocaust Memorial Day.
In 1953, the Knesset passed a law creating Yad Vashem, the official Israeli memorial institution for the Holocaust victims. On that year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, schools were instructed, for the first time, to discuss the subject with their pupils.
In 1955 Yad Vashem began documenting the victims of the Holocaust. Israel's entire leadership - the government, judges, parliamentarians and other dignitaries – took part in that year's memorial event, in the memorial forest planted outside Jerusalem.
In 1959, the Knesset passed a law officially establishing Holocaust Memorial Day in law and sanctioning official ceremonies throughout the country as well as a two-minute moment of silence, indicated by sirens.
Since 1959, non-solemn entertainment has been banned in theaters and movie theaters on the 27th of Nissan (in the Jewish sense of the day - meaning, from sundown the day before to sundown on the actual day). From that year on, flags were lowered to half-mast. Another innovation added in 1959 was a WWII veteran parade in Tel Aviv, a tradition that didn’t last. Also, schools began holding ceremonies.
In 1961 the Knesset amended the law, to close down cafes, restaurants and clubs on the 27th of Nissan.
On the Holocaust Remembrance Day of that year, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller announced that from then on April 19 would be Warsaw Ghetto Remembrance Day in the State of New York.
A noteworthy event happened on the Holocaust Remembrance Day of 1966, which saw protests against the establishment of diplomatic relations with Germany a year earlier.
In 1971, Israeli television began broadcasting special programming for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today, most channels don’t broadcast on Holocaust Remembrance Day and those few that stay on air, show only Holocaust-related programming.
On November 1, 1978 President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order making April 28 and 29 official “Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust.” The date was chosen as the date in which U.S. troops liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945. The first of these days of remembrance was held in 1979 in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda, led by Carter.
That autumn, a presidential commission called for an establishment of a United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which was to oversee the observation of a Holocaust Remembrance Day in each of the 50 states and establish a national memorial in Washington DC. The United States Holocaust Memorial Council was established in 1980. Since then the eight Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust are set from the Sunday before the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The first national memorial held under this new council took place in the White House on April 30, 1981, with President Ronald Reagan making his first public appearance following a recent assassination attempt.
In 1981, the Knesset amended the law to push Holocaust Remembrance Day back or forward a day if it fell on the weekend.
Since 1988, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, people from around the world have participated in "The March of the Living" from Auschwitz to Birkenau, in Poland.
In 1993, French President François Mitterrand proclaimed July 16 as a national day of remembrance for the Jewish victims of the pro-Nazi Vichy government. July 16 was chosen as on that date in 1943 the French police and gendarmerie rounded up the Jews of Paris and its suburbs and deported them to the Nazi death camps, where most of them perished.
Since 1996, Germany has observed January 27 as Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (“Day of Remembrance of the Victims of National Socialism.”) January 27 was chosen as it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army in 1945. The day is marked by a ceremony at the German parliament and cultural events around the country.
Sweden observes its Holocaust memorial day - Förintelsens minnesdag - on January 27th too. The Swedes first began holding an annual memorial for the victims of the Holocaust in 1999.
In 2001, January 27 became Holocaust Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom. Greece followed suit in 2004.
That same year, Romania began holding its National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust, but decided to do so on October 9th, a date chosen because on that date Romanian Jewry began to be deported to death camps in 1942.
In 2005 the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 60/7, marking January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The European Union adopted January 27 as its official Holocaust Remembrance Day that same year as did Italy and the Czech Republic.
In 2004 Israel officially made January 27th its official Day of Struggle against Anti-Semitism. Holocaust Remembrance Day continues to be celebrated on Nisan 27th, which this year is from Sunday evening to Monday evening.
(א) ימים שמתענים בהם. ובו ג' סעיפים:
אלו הימים שאירעו בהם צרו' לאבותינו וראוי להתענו' בהם ואע"פ שמקצתם בראש חודש יש מי שאומר שיתענו בו (וטוב שלא להשלים בראש חודש):
(ב) באחד בניסן מתו בני אהרן בעשרה בו מתה מרים ונסתלק הבאר בכ"ו בו מת יהושע בן נון בעשרה באייר מת עלי הכהן ושני בניו ונשבה ארון ה' בכ"ח בו מת שמואל הנביא בכ"ג בסיון בטלו הביכורים מלעלו' לירושלים בימי ירבעם בן נבט בכ"ה בו נהרג רשב"ג ורבי ישמעאל ור"ח סגן הכהנים בכ"ז בו נשרף רבי חנניא בן תרדיון וספר תורה עמו בא' באב מת אהרן הכהן בי"ח בו כבה נר מערבי בימי אחז בי"ז באלול מתו מוציאי דבת הארץ. בה' בתשרי מתו עשרים איש מישראל ונחבש ר' עקיבא בז' בו נגזרה גזירה על אבותינו שימותו בחרב וברעב ובדבר מפני מעשה העגל בז' במרחשוון עיורו עיני צדקיהו ושחטו בניו לעיניו בכ"ח בכסליו שרף יהויקים המגילה שכתב ברוך מפי ירמיהו בשמונה בטבת נכתבה התורה יונית בימי תלמי המלך והיה חושך בעולם שלשה ימים בט' בו לא נודע איזה היא הצרה שאירע בו בה' בשבט מתו הזקנים שהיו בימי יהושע בכ"ג בו נתקבצו כל ישראל על שבט בנימין על ענין פלגש בגבעה בז' באדר מת משה רבינו ע"ה בט' בו נחלקו בית שמאי ובית הלל:
(ג) יש מי שאומר שגזרו שיהיו מתענין בכל שני וחמישי על חורבן הבי' ועל התור' שנשרפה ועל חילול השם ולעתיד לבא יהפכם ה' לששון ולשמחה:
Days on Which we Fast, Containing 3 subsections
(1) These are the days on which suffering befell our ancestors, and on which it is appropriate to fast, even though some of them are on Rosh Chodesh, there is an opinion that we can fast on that day (though it is better not to complete [a fast] on Rosh Chodesh).
(2) On the first on Nisan, the sons of Aaron died. On the tenth of it Miriam died and her well disappeared. On the twenty-sixth of it Joshua ben Nun died. On the twentieth of Iyyar, Eli the priest and two of his sons and the ark of God was captured. On the twenty sixth of it Samuel the prophet died. On the twenty-third of Sivan the offering of the first fruits in Jeruslem was cancelled during the days of Jereboam ben Nebat. On the twenty-fifth of it Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Hanina Deputy High Priest were killed. On the twenty-seventh of it Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion was burned to death and a Torah scroll with him. On the first of Av, Aaron the priest died. On the eighteenth of it, the eastern light was extinguished during the days of Ahaz. On the seventeenth of Elul those who slandered the land died. On the fifth of Tishri, twenty men of Israel were killed and Rabbi Akiba was imprisoned. On the seventh of it a decree was decreed against our ancestors that died by sword, hunger and plague because of the incident of the golden calf. On the seventh of Mar-Cheshvan, they blinded the eyes of Zedekiah and slaughtered his sons before his eyes. On the twenty-eighth of Kislev Jehoiakim burned the scroll that Baruch wrote dictated by Jeremiah. On the eighth of Tevet the Torah was written in Greek during the days of King Ptolemy and darkness was in the world for three days. On the ninth of it, it was not known who caused the trouble that happened on it. On the fifth of Shevat the elders who were in the days of Joshua died. On the twenty-third of it all of Israel gathered against the tribe of Benjamin on account of the concubine in Gibeah. On the seventh of Adar Moses, our Teacher, may peace be upon him, died. On the ninth of it Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai divided.
The Shulchan Arukh Lists 20 fast days, commemorating tragedies, in addition to the major fasts that are commonly observed. And yet, many religious authorities, including Rav Soloveitchik, felt that we are not allowed to establish new fast days. Where did this idea come from?
...אך עתה בזמנינו ובמדינתינו לא שמענו מי שמתענה בתעניתים אלו שיתבאר. שלא היתה הגזירה מהגאונים להתענות בהם, אלא כתבו שראוי להתענות בהם. ועוד: דאחרי חתימת התלמוד אין ביכולת לגזור על כל ישראל...
...However, nowadays in our countries, we have never heard of anyone who fasts on these days. Because it was not a degree from the Ge'onim that we must fast on them. Rather, they wrote that is is appropriate to fast on them. Moreover, ever since the completion of the Talmud, we do not have the ability to make decrees for Israel...
אין נופלים על פניהם בכל חדש ניסן ואין אומרים צדקתך בשבת במנחה ואין מספידין בו ואין מתענין בו להזכיר בצבור והבכורות מתענים בו בערב פסח: הגה גם אין אומרים צדוק הדין בכל חדש ניסן ונהגו שאין מתענין בו תענית כלל אפי' יום שמת בו אביו או אמו אבל תענית חלום מתענין...
We do not say Tachanun through the entire month of Nissan, and we do not say "Your righteousness" on Shabbat at Minchah, and we do not deliver eulogies, and we do not fast for communal needs, and the first born fast on the eve of Passover. RAMA: And we do not say Tziduk HaDin during the whole month of Nisan. And the custom is not to fast at all, even on the day that one's parent has died. But one does fast for a bad dream...
Excerpt from R' Yitz Greenberg, The Jewish Way
The entire struggle over Holocaust commemoration was fought out in behavioral terms (what day shall be marked) rather than in theological terms. If one looks at the emergence of the day through a theological lens, however, a striking truth emerges: The day itself is a classical expression--I would say, proof--of the thesis of the emergence of a new cycle of Jewish history, one in which the human role in the covenant becomes even more responsible, while God becomes at once more hidden and more present. A new holy day has been added to the Jewish calendar. Most of the rabbis--the established "sacred" authority--had failed to grasp the idea of a sacred mourning day that would articulate this epoch-making event. The additional holy day was legislated by the Knesset, a "secular" institution acting under the cross-purposes of different groups, many of them secular and subject to political argument and even manipulation. The day thus came into being with few classic religious associations; it emerges as a totally "hidden" holy day, perceived as secular.
To those who grasp the context of the new cycle, Yom HaShoah fits the parameters of a holy day perfectly. The flaws and the all-too-human admixtures provide the necessary "cover" to enable the day to make a credible, persuasive statement about history, God, covenant, and meaning. A more visibly sacred day would have sharply limited credibility in the present cultural context. A formal holy day could not be accepted by many Jews. The non-observant would feel excluded by the halachic/sacred dimensions; secularists would lump it into the category of fairy tale, which is their concept of religion; the Orthodox would be misled into assimilating this tragedy into the earlier ones as if nothing has been changed by the Holocaust.
Excerpt from "Weep for What Amalek Has Done Unto You: Lamentation and Memory of the Holocaust in Our Generation," R' Mosheh Lichtenstein, trans. Kaeren Fish
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/weep-what-amalek-has-done-unto-you-lamentation-and-memory-holocaust-our-generation
In our society, your rabbi, your next-door neighbor, or your colleague at work might be a “brand plucked from the fire.” The possibility that the man across the street may have been a refugee who fled his country of birth without family and friends, leaving behind the world of his childhood in a desperate attempt to escape the murderous forces of evil, or that the woman seated beside you on a public bus lost her entire family in the Valley of Death is a situation that we are all familiar with. Have we not witnessed the chazan on Yom Kippur, a seemingly successful survivor, who weeps uncontrollably as he attempts to utter Eileh Ezkerah (the prayer that recounts the martyrdom of the Jewish leadership in Roman times) or loses his rhythm when he reaches the Kel Maleh Rachamim memorial passage in Yizkor?
Therefore, our attitude towards those events must arise from a feeling and emotional heart, sensing the depth of the pain and suffering, and attuned to the human element. Sensitivity and empathy, not analysis and scholarship, are of the essence. Who among us has not heard survivors’ stories, or read hair-raising memoirs written by people still alive? Each and every one of us still comes into direct contact with the memory of the Holocaust as a living, raw wound — whether within our own families or within the public domain. So long as the blood has not stopped boiling, the time for cool, clear, intellectual discourse has not yet arrived.
Therefore, concerning our own generation, we cannot and need not regard the Holocaust from the general historical perspective — whether a history examined from the point of view of human causality or whether viewed through the spectacles of Divine Providence. The command to our generation is articulated in the Kinot: “Weep greatly for the house of Israel and for the nation of God, for they have fallen by the sword.”
In the summer of 1977, newly elected Prime Minister Menachem Begin paid a visit to the United States and visited my grandfather and teacher, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. In the course of their conversation, the Rav proposed to the Prime Minister that Yom ha-Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) in Israel be annulled as a separate day of mourning and be included, instead, within the framework of Tish’a be-Av, as is our custom concerning the martyrs of the Crusaders’ attacks upon the Jewish communities of the Rhineland. In support of his suggestion, he quoted from one of the Kinot that we recite for the victims of the Crusades (Mi Yiten Roshi Mayim): “No other time of brokenness and burning should be added [in addition to Tish’a be-Av]; rather, all matters of communal mourning should be included in a single day of mourning.”
Nevertheless, it seems to me that the State acted correctly in not accepting the Rav’s proposal. In our generation, it is indeed fitting that a special day be set aside as a dedicated day of remembrance for the Holocaust. While the time may come when it will indeed be appropriate to adopt the Rav’s approach and to include Yom ha-Shoah within the framework of Tish’a be-Av, as long as the wound is still fresh and has not yet healed, we cannot integrate commemoration of the Holocaust with our mourning for the other tragedies of Jewish history whose memory is more distant and remote.
The conclusions that arise from this are that we must not include the Holocaust as yet another event in the chain of Jewish suffering and martyrdom throughout the generations, as Rav Hutner was wont to do; rather, we must award it unique attention. Regardless of whether the Holocaust is a unique historical phenomenon or not, this question should not determine the attitude of our generation towards this event. Living in such close proximity to the events of the previous generation, our relationship towards this period must be completely different from our relationship to the other tragedies of the Jewish people. We are in direct contact with those who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, and in this sense it is certainly unique from our point of view. Thus, even if Rav Hutner’s position is theoretically correct, it should not affect our perspective, since it relates only to the general issue of the workings of Divine Providence in the world, while our own approach must be based on the existential sense of common fate and empathy.