Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶּקט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

This is an archive of prayers composed for, or relevant to, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an international memorial day on 27 January, the day of the liberation of the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp. The day memorializes the unfathomable horror of the Nazi regime and its collaborators that resulted in the deaths of approximately seventeen million people including the genocide of six million Jews and a quarter million or more Roma. The Nazi atrocities include the killing of nine million Russians (including prisoners of war), 1.8 million Poles, over three-hundred thousands Serbs, a quarter million or more disabled persons, an undetermined number of political prisoners including seventy-thousand so-called asocials (LGBT persons), and nearly two thousand Jehova’s Witnesses.

The day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005 during the 42nd plenary session. The resolution came after a special session was held earlier that year on 24 January 2005 during which the United Nations General Assembly marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust. See here, for other Holocaust Memorial Days.

If you have composed a prayer or prayer-poem for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, please share it here.

Looking for something else?

For prayers composed for Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), please visit here.

For prayers composed for the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust in the United States, please visit here.

For prayers composed for Yom haShoah in the State of Israel (27 Nisan), please visit here.

For public readings selected for Holocaust & Genocide Memorial Days, go here.

אֶפְתַּח פִּי לְךָ אָדוֹן | Eftaḥ Pi L’kha Adōn, a seliḥah for Kristallnacht by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributor(s):	Isaac Gantwerk Mayer
Categories:	Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust
Tags:	פיוטים piyyutim, קינות Ḳinnot, השואה the Shoah, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Alphabetic Acrostic, Third Reich, acronym
	There’s a lot of controversy over Yom haShoah as a date. One of the key issues is this: traditionally, the ways Jews mourn communal tragedies is through establishing a fast day. It’s forbidden to fast during the month of Nisan. It’s hard to pick any specific date to commemorate a tragedy as enormous as the Shoah, but one which seems appropriate to me would be 16 Marḥeshvan, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the November Pogrom. This piyyut is a seliḥah for Kristallnacht, to be recited on 16 Marḥeshvan (or 15 Marḥeshvan on years like 5782 where the sixteenth falls on a Thursday). . . .

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Romi Cohn on 29 January 2020

Contributor(s):	United States Congressional Record and Romi Cohn
Categories:	Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), United States of America, Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies
Tags:	21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, House of Representatives, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, 116th Congress
	The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 29 January 2020. . . .

זאָג ניט קײן מאָל | Partisaner Lid (the Partisan Song), by Hirsh Glik (Vilna Ghetto, 1943)

Contributor(s):	Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Hirsh Glik
Categories:	Ḥanukkah, Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust
Tags:	20th century C.E., resistance, 58th century A.M., Yiddish songs, Vilna, Yiddish vernacular prayer, the Holocaust, Yiddishland, Guerrilla warfare, partisan resistance, anti-fascist action, anti-Nazi
	The Yiddish resistance song, “Partisaner Lid” (The Partisan Song) was composed by Hirsh Glick in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943. . . .

קִינָה עַל חֻרְבָּן הָאַחֲרוֹן | Lamentation on the Holocaust, by Shimon Zuker (1980)

Contributor(s):	Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Len Fellman (translation), Gertrude Hirschler (translation) and Simon Zuker
Categories:	Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust
Tags:	20th century C.E., קינות Ḳinnot, 58th century A.M., the Holocaust, Cantillized readings in English
	A kinnah composed by a concentration camp survivor. . . .

‏אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים תְפִילָה לַנִּסְפִּים בַּשּׁוֹאָה | El Malé Raḥamim Prayer for the Victims of the Shoah, by Rabbi Yehoyada Amir

Contributor(s):	Mona Lantz Levi (translation), Lada Moskalets (translation), Aharon N. Varady (English translation) and Yehoyada Amir
Categories:	Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust
Tags:	mourning, השואה the Shoah, אל מלא רחמים El Malé Raḥamim, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., the Holocaust, Romanian translation, Ukrainian translation
	A prayer for the victims of the Holocaust in Hebrew with English, Romanian, and Ukrainian translations. . . .

סֵדֶר לְיוֹם הַשׁוֹאָה | Seder for Yom haSho’ah, by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Contributor(s):	Isaac Gantwerk Mayer
Categories:	Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan)
Tags:	North America, symbolic foods, Mourning this Broken World, השואה the Shoah, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., the Holocaust, כז ניסן, 27 Nissan, speaking truth to power
	The most traumatic event in recent Jewish history is the Holocaust. At this time, the survivors of the camps are aging, and in the lifespan of people alive today it is likely that the last survivor will die. We say we must never forget what happened during the Holocaust, but if we think of it as a tragedy that happened to our ancestors we will forget. But it has been 3000 years since the Exodus from Egypt, and the Haggadah keeps its history vivid and alive. We are taught that in each and every generation we are to think of ourselves as having been slaves in Egypt. May it be that just as we never forgot the wonders of the Exodus, so too we never forget the horrors of the Holocaust, and continue to strive that such horrors may never happen again until all live in freedom and peace. . . .

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