The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Honors Holocaust Remembrance Day 2008. "Do Not Stand Silent: Remembering Kristallnacht 1938"(background is a faded image of a burning synagogue)

Page 1 of 4

The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as our nation's annual commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to those victims. In accordance with its Congressional mandate, the Museum is responsible for leading the nation in commemorating the Days of Remembrance, and for encouraging and sponsoring appropriate observances throughout the United States.

Observances and remembrance activities occur during the week of Remembrance that runs from the Sunday before Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) through the following Sunday. Days of Remembrance are observed by state and local governments, military bases, workplaces, schools, churches, synagogues, and civic centers.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi and their followers in Europe between the years 1933–1945. Although many other individuals and groups wee targeted during this period, only the Jewish people were targeted for complete destruction. The term “Holocaust” literally means “a completely burned sacrifice”. What actually happened is far from a sacrifice, but a intentional attempt to wipe out an entire race.

Previous       Next

broken windows, burned interior of a synagogue
In Koenigsbach, Germany, the interior of a ruined synagogue after the Kristallnacht.
residents watch as a synangogue burns
As the synagogue in Oberramstadt burns during Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"), firemen instead saved a nearby house. Local residents watched as the synagogue was destroyed. Oberramstadt, Germany, November 9-10, 1938.

The German night…remains a cause of bitterness and shame.
In those places where the houses of God stood in flames, where a signal from those in power set off a train of destruction and robbery, of humiliation, abduction and incarceration—there was an end to peace, to justice, to humanity. The night of 9 November 1938 marked one of the stages along the path leading down to hell…
— Helmut Schmidt, former Chancellor, West Germany
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority (background); Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (images left and right)