Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day

Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה; "Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day"

Some 12 million lives were extinguished by the Nazi regime and its allies. Persons murdered for who they were, not what they did. Jews, gays, lesbians, Roma, Poles, Slavs, and the mentally and physically challenged. Persons were murdered for having the "wrong" opinions; Communists, trade unionists, intellectuals, and other "malcontents." It was a systematic, state approved mechanism for ridding the Fatherland of it's Untermensch or undesirable sub-humans. It was cruel and highly effective. Three-quarters of European Jewry ceased to exist, almost half the world's population of Jews were erased from the planet. Anywhere from a quarter to almost half of the European Romani people had their lives extinguished. Medical experiments, death inducing labor, hunger, disease, and some of the most cruel methods of torture and execution were implemented.

Seventy years have passed and the survivors are dying, as are their first-person stories. It is important to remember them, as well as though, who risked their own lives to protect the lives of other innocent people. The heroes came from all walks of life, all types of religions, positions of power, and even some countries (Albania, Denmark) did what the could to stop the scourge of the Nazi death machine.