Commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day
01/27/2026 10:04:09 AM
Jan27
Author
Date Added
Jewish Community of Greater Stowe
Dear JCOGS family,
On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we wanted to highlight an email from our friends at the Vermont Holocaust Memorial. Below you will find words about the significance of this commemoration and opportunities to take pause and mark this day. The lessons of the Shoah, tragically, remain ever present.
May their memories be for a blessing.
Rabbi David
On January 27th each year much of the world marks the United Nations instituted International Holocaust Memorial Day. On that date in 1945, the Soviet army entered the Auschwitz extermination camps system, liberating only approximately six thousand prisoners - most of whom ill and dying. Just before liberation, some 60,000 prisoners of those camps were forced to march west by the Nazis. In the Auschwitz system alone, the camp authorities killed one million Jews, approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma (Gypsies), and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.
In the U.S. and Israel, the Holocaust is commemorated most profoundly on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is the 27th day of the month of Nissan on the Jewish calendar. That date was chosen as it is the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - the largest uprising by Jews during World War II. Since the Jewish calendar is not exactly aligned with the Gregorian calendar, Yom HaShoah usually falls sometime between mid-April and early May.
The Holocaust stands as one of the most thoroughly documented atrocities in human history, yet denial, distortion, and ignorance persist. Education remains the most effective safeguard against these dangers.
Vermont Holocaust Memorial takes the responsibility of sharing these essential lessons personally. As we see the alarming rise of antisemitism around the world, it is more important than ever to recognize the critical lessons of Holocaust history, commemorate the victims, and honor the survivors.
Below are some online opportunities to reflect and remember during this month’s International Holocaust Remembrance Days. Please join us and ensure that Holocaust education continues for future generations.
Commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day by introducing your students to an important mission – recovering the identities and memory of those whom the Nazis sought to erase. Sheryl Ochayon, Yad Vashem's Project Director, will use the database and Pages of Testimony of Yad Vashem to tell the stories of some of the lives lost in the Holocaust. Yad Vashem announced in November that it has reached a milestone in recovering the names of 5 million of the 6 million victims.
In 1945, a group of survivors in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp opened several schools for the growing number of orphaned and displaced children at the camp. To help their young charges heal, the teachers encouraged them to write and speak about their traumatic wartime experiences. Recently uncovered notebooks of child testimonies, together with fragmentary archival collections scattered across multiple repositories, tell the story of this early documentary effort.
Presented by: Christopher Mauriello, PhD, Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Salem State University
Regina Kazyulina, PhD, Assistant Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Salem State University
Roman Neumark and Regina Herzberg Neumark pose with their daughter, Lilka, in Bedzin, Poland, 1939. The family was deported to Auschwitz on June 24, 1943, where they were murdered. USHMM, courtesy of Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oswiecimiu
You are invited to visit the Museum on January 27 to read names of Holocaust victims in the Hall of Remembrance from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (use your own list or one provided for you). You may also listen to others read names or light a memorial candle. Join us to remember the victims, honor the survivors, and reaffirm the lessons of the Holocaust.
For more information or to schedule a special tour in Fairfax, please contact: Sara Villeneuve at svilleneuve@fwsu.org or by phone 802-393-2333
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BFA Fairfax HS is the first of three schools hosting the “Anne Frank: A History for Today” student-led exhibit in Vermont this school year. Watch your email for other Community events at the exhibitions appearing:
Copyright (C) 2026 Vermont Holocaust Memorial. All rights reserved.
The Vermont Holocaust Memorial is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization. You are receiving this email because of your interest in Holocaust and genocide education. Vermont Holocaust Memorial P.O. Box 436 Jeffersonville, Vermont 05464
