The six candles lighted on Monday each represent 1 million people who died in the Holocaust.
Approximately 6 million people died in the Holocaust, too many names to call out even in a 24-hour period. But on Tuesday evening in the EMU Amphitheater, the Jewish Student Union will have attempted to announce as many of those names as possible.
To honor Yom HaShoah, or the Holocaust Memorial, which is a worldwide celebration for those who died in the Holocaust, JSU has been holding a ceremony reading the names of those who passed since the group formed at the University in the 1970s. The Holocaust Memorial marks the first day of the Shoah Remembrance Week, Shoah being the Hebrew word for Holocaust.
“Other universities and student groups have their own way of celebrating the Holocaust Memorial, but this is how we choose to do it,” JSU Co-Director David Kent said.
The ceremony began Monday at 7 p.m. with candle lighting, prayer and song, in both English and Hebrew. A group of about 20 people lighted six Yahrzeit candles, which are used to remember the dead in a time of mourning. Each candle represents a million of the individuals killed in the Holocaust. At the concentration camps, Yahrzeit candles are burned daily, Oregon Hillel women’s collective chairwoman Andrea Lipstein said.
While lighting the candles, the group sang Hanna Senesh’s poem “Elli, Elli,” which she wrote while detained in a concentration camp. Senesh died behind enemy lines as a solider fighting against the Nazis. They also sang “Hatikva,” which is the national anthem of Israel.
“It is very important to honor the memory of those who were killed because it can happen to any group of people,” Oregon Hillel student life coordinator June Sedarbaum Harris said.
Oregon Hillel member Matthew Peltz said he believes this event is especially important today because of the current bombings of synagogues in France.
“These events are similar to the events that occurred before the Holocaust,” he said. “Discrimination still happens today, and people downplay it.”
Lipstein agreed.
“It’s an important day to remember what horrible things happen in this world so they don’t happen again,” she said. “It’s a way to raise awareness.”
JSU members and members from co-sponsoring Oregon Hillel, a nonprofit Jewish organization for college students, will be taking turns reading names. However, University students, Lane County community members and anyone else interested in reading names can sign up for 10 minute time slots. People can also sign up for longer time slots, and in past years, individuals and groups have read for up to two hours, Kent said.
Many greek houses have called out names in past years, and the University’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Alliance also participates, because the Nazis killed many gays during the Holocaust, Kent said.
“This is not just a religious event, it is a cultural event,” JSU Co-Director Shainah Falk said. “This event is to create sympathy for all those who died and to remember how tremendous and sad the Holocaust was. The Holocaust actually happened, even if people deny it, because there are survivors.”
JSU will be reading the names of those who died from a book titled “Gedenkbuch.” The group has read the names listed alphabetically in this book for the past five years. Each year, the group reads a different set of names starting with the letter of the last name they ended with the year before. This year the group started with the letter “M.” The book does not contain all the 6 million people’s names, but is a fairly accurate account of the people who died, Kent said.
Kent said he believes this annual event is important for everyone to participate in and learn from.
“I did not lose anyone in my family to the Holocaust, but many people had their entire families wiped out,” Kent said. “I am remembering those that have no one else to remember them by.”
JSU encourages anyone who wants to participate in the event to come and sign up for a time slot at the tent in the amphitheater.
The ceremony will conclude at 7 p.m. Tuesday with a small prayer. Next year, JSU and the Oregon Hillel plan to hold a week-long education forum about the Holocaust with their annual Holocaust Memorial ceremony.
E-mail reporter Danielle Gillespie
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