Holocaust Remembrance Day Essay

During the years of 1933 to 1945, Adolf Hitler set up concentration camps to lock up Jews because Hitler thought that the Jews were the cause of Germany’s reparations. These camps killed six million innocent Jews. This event was known as the Holocaust. Children were enlisted into these camps, which separated them from their parents. Many Jews would never see their friends and family again, and some never learn of what happened to them. To remember all the victims who were killed during this genocide, the United Nations, along with government leaders of Israel, and America, a remembrance day was created to honor those who have died. David Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the President of Israel, signed the creation of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) in 1953. Yom HaShoah occurs on the 27th of Nisan and it is memorialized annually.

The date was changed many times throughout the years. When the remembrance day was first being established, the date was planned to be the eighth of Av, which was when Jews were first sent to Warsaw death camps in 1942. Another proposal was the date of Warsaw ghetto

The remains of thousands of fallen Jews were brought from the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp near Munich to Jerusalem. The remains were then placed in a crypt, together with decorated Torah scrolls, in a Jerusalem cemetery. That evening, a special radio program was played to honor the fallen victims of the Holocaust. The following year, in December 1950, some 70 ceremonies were held around Israel. March 1951, however, was when the Knesset decided to take an active role, and chose a new date for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Three were proposed: again 10 Tevet; Passover; and September 1, the date the war broke out on. Finally, the date was finally assigned to the 27th day of Nisan, which is still the date