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. Filter resources by Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category
Filtered by category: “Kristallnacht (9-10 November, 16 Marḥeshvan)” (clear filter)“The German Crisis” by Rabbi Norman Michael Goldburg, was offered before the California state legislature on 3 April 1933, and published in California Legislature 50th Session 1933: Prayers Offered at the Daily Sessions of the Assembly, pp. 59-60. . . .
An untitled prayer on behalf of German Jewry under Nazi oppression disseminated in Bombay, likely after Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938). . . .
This is a vocalized transcription and translation of the World War Ⅱ era song, “Shir haGe’ulah (Song of Redemption)” from the source images shared in A Tribute to Rabbi Mordechai Meir Hakohen Bryski v”g Bryski (Rabbi Mordechai A. Katz, 2017), pp. 19-20. The song is also known by its incipit, “Heḥayyeinu El.” . . .
This is an undated El Malé Raḥamim prayer for the victims of the Shoah translated into Dutch for a Yom Kippur ne’ilah service, likely sometime soon after the Holocaust had ended. To this I have added an English translation for those not fluent in Dutch or Hebrew. We are grateful to Shufra Judaica (Ellie Fisher and David Selis) for sharing a digital copy of this prayer. . . .
A paraliturgical adaptation of the prayer/curse, “Shfokh Ḥamatekha,” this prayer, likely written during, or just after the Holocaust, recognizes those nations and righteous gentiles who fought and risked their lives to aid and rescue European Jewry. . . .
A ḳinnah composed by a concentration camp survivor. . . .
A meditation on a unique prayer heard by Rabbi Dr. David Weiss Halivni at the Rosh Hashanah services at the Wolfsberg Labor Camp in 1944. . . .
A prayer for the victims of the Holocaust in Hebrew with English, Romanian, and Ukrainian translations. . . .
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). . . .
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