Coalition Spotlight: Together, We Remember

Annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls next Friday, January 27th, and this year it will mark the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

As a movement committed to ending antisemitism, Holocaust commemoration is a top priority for CAM and our partners. As time passes, the number of surviving witnesses to the worst atrocity in human history is dwindling, and the need to enshrine the lessons of the past for future generations is only growing more urgent.

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time,” the late Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel said.

Together, we remember.

CAM is honored to share upcoming programs from our coalition partners dedicated to the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Claims Conference: 

To commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Claims Conference is launching an in innovative social media campaign: #DONTBEABYSTANDER

The campaign called “#DontBeABystander: Those Who Risked It All To Save A Life” is a Holocaust education campaign that highlights a lesser-known aspect of the Holocaust — stories of “Righteous rescuers,” who risked everything, even their own lives, to save Jews during the Holocaust.

For more info, visit: dontbeabystander.org

3GNY:

Join 3GNY on Friday, January 27th for a meaningful Shabbat dinner and commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 3GNY volunteer Julia Mechner and her father, Holocaust survivor Francis Mechner, will share their family story of survival and perseverance. Together with Peter Nelson, 3GNY’s WEDU instructor, they will discuss the transmission of Holocaust legacy from survivors to the next generations.

For more info and tickets, click here.

The Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America:

On Sunday, January 22nd, at 1:30 PM ET, join the annual International Rhodes/Cos Memorial commemorating the nearly 2,000 victims from the Islands of Rhodes and Cos murdered in the Holocaust. The program will feature a special set of commemorative presentations by Sephardic Community Leaders, Stella Hanan Cohen and Jo Mallel, of Zimbabwe and South Africa and will conclude with a traditional “Hashkavah” memorial prayer for the Sephardic communities of Rhodes, Cos, Greece, and the Balkans.

Register here.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

The scene is seared in Irene Weiss’s memory. One minute she was holding hands with her younger sister. The next, a Nazi officer separated them with his baton, and 11-year-old Edith was swallowed into a crowd, unknowingly bound for a gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Decades later, Irene discovered the most painful moment of her life had been documented by a Nazi photographer. She saw her 13-year-old self, wearing a scarf and leaning forward, searching for Edith.

As we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Irene will share the story of the day her family was torn apart.

This online event, starting on Friday, January 27th at 9:30 AM ET, can be accessed here.

Greater Miami Jewish Federation:

Music and the Holocaust —

What is the relationship of music to the Holocaust? What meaning did music come to hold for the victims of the Nazis, and what place does it have in adding to our understanding of the history of the Holocaust? What place does it have in Holocaust commemoration, memory, and education? Join critically-acclaimed author and musicologist Dr. James Grymes as he discusses the answers to these questions in a virtual lecture on Thursday, January 26th at 7 P.M. ET.

For more info,  visit: jewishmiami.org/events/music_and_the_holocaust

Surviving the Holocaust as a Teenage Boy —

Saul Blau was born in Tarpa, Hungary, in 1930 to an observant Jewish family with seven children. At age thirteen, he and his family were removed from their home and sent to Auschwitz, where his parents and younger sister perished. Saul was sent to work in a coal mine camp and months later he was forced on a death march to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he was liberated in 1945 by the U.S. Armed Forces. Saul returned to Hungary in search of surviving relatives and quickly decided to join the “aliyat noar,” youth migration to Israel. Upon arriving, he joined the fledgling Israeli Air Force and remained in the country for seven years before traveling to the United States to reunite with his surviving siblings. There he met his future wife, Viola Schlesinger. They had two sons, Robert and Andrew. Saul now resides in Bal Harbor, Florida and volunteers at the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach.

Watch Saul share his story on Zoom on Friday, January 27th, at 10 AM. RSVP here.

Moment Magazine:

In 1944, Rudolf Vrba, 19, was the first of only four people to successfully break out of Auschwitz to warn the world about the atrocities taking place at the death camp. Although the report he cowrote was ignored by many, Vrba is credited with having saved 200,000 Jewish lives.

On Tuesday, January 24th, at 2:30 PM ET, Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland, author of “The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World” joins former CBS News correspondent and Moment contributor Dan Raviv for a conversation about the heroic efforts of Vrba and why his report did not have a bigger impact.

Register here.

B’nai B’rith International:

Join B’nai B’rith International on Thursday, January 26th, at 12 PM ET, for “Each Life a World: Survivors in Their Own Words,” featuring Holocaust survivor Professor Ivan Lefkovits and Senior Vice President of Education and Exhibitions at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center Kelley Szany.

The program can be accessed here.