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A Holocaust Memorial Public Reading of Names

Each year, the Program in Jewish Studies along with the Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History recognize Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) with a public reading of the names of European Jews murdered by the Germans and their allies during the Holocaust.

The U.S. Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust in 1980. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1993, is responsible for leading the nation in observing Days of Remembrance and for encouraging observances throughout the United States. The main event takes place at the U.S. Capitol, often attended by the President of the United States. In Israel, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah in Hebrew) is a national day of commemoration, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized. It begins at sunset on the 27th of the month of Nisan and ends the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom of marking a day. Established in 1953 by a law from the Knesset (Israeli parliament), it falls close the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 

During Yom HaShoah ceremonies in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere, community members read the names of Jews murdered by the Germans and their allies during the Shoah. “The events of the Holocaust are given meaning,” Rabbi Sharon Sobel writes, “only by remembering the individuals who died during that time. We gather as a community, we remember the names of those who died and we affirm their lives by how we choose to lead our lives. So, names, indeed, are very powerful. . . we honor those who came before us and those who perished during the Holocaust by giving our names – and their names meaning through our actions and aspirations and the way we fulfill them.”