Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust
The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH) is an annual eight-day period designated by the United States Congress for civic commemorations and special educational programs that help citizens remember and draw lessons from the Holocaust. The annual DRVH period normally begins on the Sunday before the Israeli observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, and continues through the following Sunday, usually in April or May. A National Civic Commemoration is held in Washington, D.C., with state, city, and local ceremonies and programs held in most of the fifty states, and on U.S. military ships and stations around the world. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum designates a theme for each year's programs, and provides materials to help support remembrance efforts.
Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff delivers invocation at national DRVH ceremony, Capitol Rotunda, April 27, 1987
While standing inside The Hall of Remembrance, located within the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., a volunteer reads the names of Holocaust victims during the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust.
Margaret Furst speaking at Texas A&M University–Commerce's Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 13, 2015
Rabbi Seymour Siegel (center), then Executive Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, meets the Sixth Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Edward Martin (right), and Assistant Sixth Fleet Chaplain Arnold Resnicoff (left), to discuss the participation of U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet ships in the U.S. annual Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust. USS Puget Sound, Gaeta, Italy, 1984.
Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah, known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in that period. In Israel, it is a national memorial day. The first official commemorations took place in 1951, and the observance of the day was anchored in a law passed by the Knesset in 1959. It is held on the 27th of Nisan, unless the 27th would be adjacent to the Jewish Sabbath, in which case the date is shifted by a day.
"March of the Living" at Auschwitz, 2014
Flags at half mast at sundown on Yom HaShoah
Sirens blare at 10:00 a.m. as motorists exit their cars and stand in silence in front of the Prime Minister's House in Jerusalem and throughout Israel on Yom HaShoah.
The March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau is held annually on Yom HaShoah.