Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶּקט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

This is an archive of prayers composed for, or relevant to, the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust in the United States.

The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH) is an annual 8-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 Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day in the State of Israel on the 27th of Nisan, 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.

A House Joint resolution 1014 designated April 28 and 29 of 1979 as “Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust.” Senator John Danforth of Missouri, who originated the resolution, chose April 28 and 29 because it was on these dates, in 1945, that American troops—including at least one ethnically segregated artillery battalion of the U.S. Army, many of whose own relatives were themselves interned during the war on American soil—liberated the Dachau concentration camp and a number of its satellite camps, as well as rescuing hundreds of Jewish-ethnicity camp inmates driven southwards from Dachau by the Nazis on a death march only days later.

If you have composed a prayer or prayer-poem for the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, please share it here.

Looking for something else?

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

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

For prayers composed for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, please visit here.

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

Prayer for a Service of Intercession [for European Jewry during the Holocaust], by Lilian Helen Montagu (ca. 1940)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Lilian Helen Montagu

Categories:

Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., British Jewry, English vernacular prayer, World War II, the Holocaust

This undated “Special prayer for Service of Intercession” by the Hon. Lily H. Montagu (1873-1963) from the archives of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, was published in, Lily Montagu: Sermons, Addresses, Letters, and Prayers (ed. Ellen M. Umansky, 1985), pp. 356-357. From the contents, it reads as if it was composed in response to the terrifying news of the tortuous treatment of European Jews during the Holocaust. In 1940, other “intercession” services were offered with comparative prayers; for example, this one by the chief rabbi J.H. Hertz included in the Prayer Book for H.M. Forces. . . .

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:

Alphabetic Acrostic, Third Reich, פיוטים piyyutim, acronym, קינות Ḳinnot, השואה the Shoah, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M.

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). . . .

‏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 (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:

אל מלא רחמים El Malé Raḥamim, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., the Holocaust, Romanian translation, Ukrainian translation, mourning, השואה the Shoah

A prayer for the victims of the Holocaust in Hebrew with English, Romanian, and Ukrainian translations. . . .

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:

the Holocaust, Cantillized readings in English, 20th century C.E., קינות Ḳinnot, 58th century A.M.

A ḳinnah composed by a concentration camp survivor. . . .

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Manny Behar on 30 April 2003

Contributor(s):

United States Congressional Record and Manny Behar

Categories:

Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, United States of America, Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies

Tags:

House of Representatives, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, 108th Congress, תחינות teḥinot, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 30 April 2003. . . .

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff on 29 April 2003

Contributor(s):

United States Congressional Record and Arnold E. Resnicoff

Categories:

Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, United States of America, Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies

Tags:

English vernacular prayer, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, Senate, 108th Congress, תחינות teḥinot, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M.

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 29 April 2003. . . .

Prayer at the National Civic Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, by Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff on 28 April 1987

Contributor(s):

Arnold E. Resnicoff

Categories:

Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, United States of America

Tags:

58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, the Holocaust, American Jewry of the United States, Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH), 20th century C.E., השואה the Shoah

This prayer was delivered by the U.S. Navy Chaplain, Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, at the 1987 National Civic Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance, in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. It was first published in Days of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust: a Department of Defense guide for commemorative observance (Office of the Secretary of Defence, 1988). . . .

Prayer of Intercession [for Britain in the War against Nazi Germany], by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire 1940)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Joseph Herman Hertz and Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth

Categories:

Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, Armistice Day, November 11 (Veterans Day, US), United Kingdom, War

Tags:

20th century C.E., Third Reich, military, 58th century A.M., British Jewry, World War II, anti-Nazi, anti-fascist

“Prayer for Intercession,” almost certainly written by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, was published in the Prayer Book of Jewish Members of H.M. Forces (Office of the Chief Rabbi 1940), pp. 18-19. . . .

Prayer on the Declaration of War [against Nazi Germany], by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire 1940)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Joseph Herman Hertz and Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth

Categories:

Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, Armistice Day, November 11 (Veterans Day, US), United Kingdom, War

Tags:

Third Reich, military, 58th century A.M., British Jewry, World War II, anti-Nazi, anti-fascist, 20th century C.E.

This prayer for victory and deliverance in the war against Nazi Germany, simply titled “War Prayer,” appears in the Prayer Book of Jewish Members of H.M. Forces (Office of the Chief Rabbi 1940), pp. 16-17. Sections of the prayer were adapted from the prayer on the declaration of war by Rabbi Hertz in 1914 at the outset of World War I. In the preface to the payer book, Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz specifically mentions this prayer, among others, as having been newly revised for this publication. The initial version of the prayer, likely to have been written by Rabbi Hertz, was published by the Office of the Chief Rabbi for a 17 Tammuz service in July 1938. A revision was disseminated after Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938). This is the third version of the prayer. . . .

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

The Yiddish resistance song, “Partisaner Lid” (The Partisan Song) was composed by Hirsh Glick in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943. . . .

תפילה לעזרת היהודים תושבי גרמניה | Prayer for German Jewry under Nazi oppression before and after Kristallnacht (Office of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire 1938)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Joseph Herman Hertz and Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth

Categories:

Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Shivah Asar b'Tamuz, Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust

Tags:

World War II, the Holocaust, anti-fascist, 20th century C.E., Jews of India, 57th century A.M., Third Reich, British Empire, German Jewry

An untitled prayer on behalf of German Jewry under Nazi oppression disseminated in Bombay, likely after Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938). . . .

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