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.

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

Contributor(s):	Isaac Gantwerk Mayer
Categories:	Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), 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). . . .

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

Contributor(s):	comYakowenko (translation), Noam Lerman (translation), Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Hirsh Glik
Categories:	Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Yom haShoah (27 Nisan), Ḥanukkah, 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, Ukrainian translation, 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
	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:	Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), 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 (translation) and Yehoyada Amir
Categories:	Kristallnacht (16 Marḥeshvan), Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), 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. . . .

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:	תחינות teḥinot, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, Senate, 108th Congress
	The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 29 April 2003. . . .

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:	תחינות teḥinot, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, House of Representatives, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, 108th Congress
	The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 30 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:	20th century C.E., השואה the Shoah, 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)
	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). . . .

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