What Is the Best Way To Commemorate the Holocaust?

Ma’ariv, Israel, May 1

As a daughter of Holocaust survivors, and on the occasion of Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, I find myself time and time again debating about the best way to commemorate the Holocaust – the experience not only of my family but also of the millions of other victims. This year, when crimes against humanity take place against our eyes in those geographical areas where the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe once took place, and the firing pits resonate with the memory of Babi Yar, there is no escape from asking: Has the world learned anything since the 1940s? The concept of “man’s inhumanity to man,” first coined by Scottish poet Robert Burns, takes on a new meaning in the face of the millions of refugees fleeing bloody Ukraine. For the past 77 years, since the Holocaust took place, we have sworn to “remember and never forget” – but in what way? What moral responsibility do we have, as those in charge of the Holocaust’s remembrance, in such times of crisis? And so I return to what has become the center of my life: to remind the world, through the testimonies of the survivors who still live with us, what happened to the victims of the Holocaust and what future generations can learn from all this. And I’m reminded of the words of 92-year-old Auschwitz survivor Erika Yaakobi, who said: “If I could influence even one person to fight evil and stand up to discrimination, injustice, and intolerance – then I’ve done my fair share in the world.” Time is running out and we must document, disseminate, and promote the testimonies of living survivors, using all means available at our disposal. The Department of Holocaust Remembrance at the World Zionist Organization, in collaboration with the USC Shoah Foundation, is currently appealing to all survivors who have not yet testified, to be interviewed and make their voices heard. The “Memory in the Living Room” project is also an excellent platform for presenting survivors’ testimonies to many audiences, as well as our intergenerational project “6 M Followers.” We recently celebrated Passover, with the notable commandment “and you shall tell your children.” In dealing with the question of how the absence of survivors will affect our responsibility to commemorate the Holocaust there is no doubt that our job now is to spread the voices of survivors, as long as they are with us, to future generations. We must listen to the wise words of the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who said: “We cannot change the past, but the survivors have shown us that out of the wreckage of destruction something can be redeemed from the past, if we fight hate with love, brutality with compassion, and death with an unconquerable dedication to life.” –Tova Dorfman (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)