2019 Yom HaShoah Commemoration

Thursday, May 2, 7pm
JCC Katz Auditorium (5738 Darlington Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15217)
Free and open to the public

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This commemoration program focuses on Women and the Holocaust, the Holocaust Center’s 2018-2019 program theme, and includes short readings from women’s diaries during the Holocaust. The main event is a candle-lighting ceremony honoring Holocaust survivors, rescuers, liberators, and Righteous Gentiles. This year’s ceremony will honor first responders from SWAT, 911 operators, Fire, EMS, and the Pittsburgh Police.

About Yom HaShoah

Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, is the day set aside to remember the approximately six-million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. In Israel, it is a national memorial day.

Yom HaShoah was inaugurated in 1959, anchored in a law signed by then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.  The original proposal was to hold Yom HaShoah on the 14th of the Jewish month of Nisan, the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising (April 19, 1943), but this was problematic because the 14th of Nisan is the day immediately before the start of Passover.  Thus, the date was moved to the 27th of Nisan, which is eight days before Yom Ha’atzma’ut, or Israeli Independence Day.  Because the 27th of Nisan changes each year on the secular calendar, the date of the commemoration varies year to year.

The 2019 Yom HaShoah program is underwritten by Agnes Rocher and Family, in memory of her husband George.

Yom HaShoah is part of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s 2019 Week of Remembrance.

We are now accepting sponsorships for the Week of Remembrance. Please contact Tanya Bielski-Braham at tbielski-braham@hcpgh.org or 412-939-7293 for details.