The Echo

Remind and Remember

http://www.yomhashoah2013.com/index.html

This year, commemorate the Holocaust by bringing the story to a new generation.  On April 8, 2013 join thousands of others who will be wearing the word Yizkor on their forearms.

For years, survivors walked among us with tattoos to mark the horror they lived through. Their stories, their scars and the numbers carved callously into their skins made the holocaust real, personal and powerful for generations to come.  There are fewer and fewer survivors still living. Fewer people are telling first-hand accounts of personal experiences.  Soon, the tattoos will be seen only in pictures, movies and museums while the stories slowly fade and with them the hard-learned lessons for those who survived, rebuilt and rose up. 
This year, join us in observing Holocaust Memorial Day by writing YIZKOR on your arm.

 Yizkor/ יזכור
Yizkor means remembrance. It is the mourners' prayer which is recited four times a year on Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot.  The prayer is said by every person who has lost a parent or other loved ones.  Many Jews also recite Yizkor for those who perished in the Holocaust and have no one to recite Kaddish or Yizkor for them.

The Yizkor service concludes with av harachamim, which is a prayer for the souls of all Jewish martyrs. Some congregations specifically mention those who were killed by the Nazis.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/yizkor.html

Yizkor Books 
After world war II, groups of survivors started putting together Yizkor books in an effort to document and preserve the Jewish life that was destroyed by the Nazis.  Many groups of survivors created these books about specific areas in which they lived and included information about: the history of the town, the first Jewish settlements, the town leadership and biographical information about Rabbis from the town.

A large portion of the Yizkor books included recollections of childhood memories and neighbors.  Others recount the last days of the Jewish community under Nazi occupation and tales of escapes from concentration camps.

Almost all Yizkor books also include a section of memorial notices commemorating families and individuals lost during the war. http://www.rechtman.com/yizkorbk.htm#what

The Numbers
The numbered tattoos that have today become an identifying mark of Holocaust survivors originated in Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp in Europe. There, incoming prisoners went through the infamous selektion (selection process). An SS officer would sort the prisoners into two lines: those sent to the right were immediately killed in the gas chambers, those sent to the left were put to work in the forced labor camps. After their heads were shaved and their personal possessions removed, the prisoners were officially registered. Beginning in 1941, this registration consisted of a tattoo, which was placed on the left breast of the prisoner; later, the tattoo location was moved to the inner forearm. It was not only Jews who were marked: all prisoners other than ethnic Germans and police prisoners were tattooed. These tattoos were just one of the ways in which the Nazis dehumanized their prisoners. Despite the perception that all Holocaust prisoners were given tattoos, it was only the prisoners of Auschwitz after 1941 who were branded this way. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Tattoos.html