Remembering the Holocaust

Rachelle Miller, at Pasadena City Hall with another reader, read the names of those murdered at Babi Yar during the annual “Every Person Has a Name.”
Photo provided by Rachelle MILLER

By Mary O’KEEFE

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, designated by the United Nations. On Jan. 27, 1945 the Soviet Armed Forces entered Auschwitz, Birkenau and Monowitz and liberated 7,000 prisoners – most of whom were ill and dying, according to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“As Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the SS (Schutzstaffel, the black-uniformed political soldiers of the Nazi Party during World War II) began evacuating Auschwitz and its sub-camps. SS units forced nearly 60,000 prisoners to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the killing center at Auschwitz. Almost all of the deportees who arrived at the camps were sent immediately to death in the gas chambers. It is estimated that the SS and police deported at a minimum 1.3 million people to Auschwitz complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these, the camp authorities murdered 1.1 million,” according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“Over the next 15 to 20 years the last survivors of the Holocaust will pass away along with those first hand accounts,” said Jason Moss, executive director, Jewish Federation of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys.

During this last weekend the Jewish Federation and Moss organized the “Every Person Has a Name” ceremony when the names of those lost in the Holocaust were read over a 25-hour period.

This is the fourth year of the moving and important event. The names read this year were from those murdered at Babi Yar.

In September 1941, SS and German police perpetrated one of the largest massacres of World War II taking place at a ravine called Babyn Yar (Babi Yar).

During a two-day massacre in Kiev, over 33,771 Jews were massacred, Moss said. Participants of “Every Person Has a Name” over the weekend read 10,000 of those names.

“We didn’t even read half of the names in a 24-hour period,” Moss said.

A report released in October 2021 by the American Jewish Committee found that in the past 12 months one in four American Jews has been the target of anti-Semitism. In addition, there continues to be a growing number of Holocaust deniers who oftentimes are being fueled by social media.

Moss said it is important to continue to remind people of the Holocaust and to pay homage to those who died at the hands of the Nazis.

“We need to remember what happens if hate goes unchecked,” Moss said.

This is especially concerning as survivors age and soon will no longer be able to share their stories in person.

There are several museums like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the USC Shoah Foundation that have collected videos and voice recordings as well as photos of survivors but Moss said it is not the same as meeting someone and hearing their story face-to-face.

In the fall of 2020 information from a nationwide survey on the Holocaust was released. It found that among adults under 40, one in 10 respondents did not recall ever hearing the word “Holocaust” before. Many did not know the basic facts of what genocide actually was and 63% of those surveyed did not know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust; half thought it was less than two million. The survey was commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

“That [percentage] is alarming. At the same time many do not believe it could happen,” Moss said.

He has heard people say, “I would never allow that to happen here.” Moss feels the size and scope of the atrocities of the Holocaust is difficult for some people to comprehend.

“But one-third of the entire Jewish world was gone,” he added.

That is why the reading of the names is so important: to remind people of what happened and to remember this type of evil could happen again.

“It was surreal,” said Rachelle Miller, one of the readers during the ceremony and office manager at CV Weekly.

This was the second year Miller has been involved in the event. She was scheduled to read from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. but stayed another hour to continue to read names of those murdered.

Last year’s event was held virtually; this time Miller was in person at the ceremony held at Pasadena City Hall.

“The name of the youngest person I read was 3 months old,” she said. “We need to preserve their stories. We need to remember them. We need to remember the history.”