6th International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27th – the anniversary of the liberation of the camp Auschwitz-Birkenau – was chosen as the date of the celebrations.
On January 27th, 2011 at 4:30 pm in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw will start the celebrations of the 6th International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The event is organized under the honorary patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Bronisław Komorowski and the Mayor of Wrocław Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz.
Wreaths at the monument will be laid by the most important state officials, ambassadors, representatives of state and municipal authorities, social and religious organizations, as well as scouts and school youth. That way they will jointly honor the memory of the Holocaust.
The celebrations – organized by the Shalom Foundation and the Warsaw Town Hall – will include an artistic part with the actors of the Jewish Theater and afterwards an ecumenical prayer will be said.
The Shalom Foundation appeals: “We are asking everyone to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust on that day at 6 pm, by putting a candle in their windows. The memory of those who suffered so much must burn in us just like a candle. Everyone has the duty to make sure that the light of memory should never go out in our consciousness”.
At 6 pm on Próżna Street will be held the Memory Appeal. The organizers write: “We would like to invite everyone who lost their friends and relatives in the hell of the Holocaust to read their names. It should be a time of reflection on the murdered generation, on the victims who look at us from the windows of the tenements on Próżna Street”.
On January 26th and 27th from 12 noon to 6 pm on the streets of Warsaw will appear a historic trolley – the Ghost Trolley – with the Star of David. It will symbolize the trolley from the Warsaw Ghetto. It will run the following route: Filtrowa Street – Zbawiciela Square – Marszałkowska Street – Andersa Street – Pętla Potocka – Jana Pawła II Avenue – Stawki Street – Andersa Street – Marszałkowska Street – Zbawiciela Square – Filtrowa Street – Narutowicza Square. As the organizers explain: “It is supposed to remind the inhabitants of the capital about their Jewish neighbors, who were killed in extermination camps and ghettos”.
