“You have tried to wipe us out, but we are here.”
This is the message of the Partisans’ Song — “Zog Nit Keynmol (Never Say)” in Yiddish — often recited at events commemorating Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the spring.
The Jewish community in Los Angeles solemnly remembers the Holocaust, when millions of Jews were killed during World War II, including those who survived and fought against the Nazi regime. Decades later, amid rising antisemitism locally and internationally, the resilient faith community continues to stand up against hate.
For the first time since 2019, the Holocaust Museum LA is bringing back its Yom Hashoa commemoration to Pan Pacific Park on Sunday, April 16 at 2 p.m. The outdoor ceremony will bring together Holocaust survivors, elected officials and Jewish community leaders for speeches, traditional prayers and music.
Yom Hashoa is traditionally marked on the 27th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, a week after the seventh day of Passover. This year’s commemoration also falls on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising that began April 19, 1943 — the eve of Passover — when leaders in the largest Jewish ghetto in Poland fought against Germans rounding up Jews to deport them to death camps. That year, similar uprisings also took place at the Sobibor and Treblinka concentration camps.
The Jewish community remembers the Warsaw Ghetto, Sobibor and Treblinka uprisings as “timeless symbols of resistance, perseverance and defiance” in the face of hatred.
Organizers say this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day encompasses a theme of standing together against past and present antisemitism. The Anti-Defamation League reported that such incidents — including criminal and non-criminal cases of harassment, vandalism and assault of Jews — have hit a record-high nationwide. In 2022, 3,697 incidents were reported; a 36% increase from the 2,717 incidents in 2021, and the highest number on record since…
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