2018 ANNUAL REPORT
The Global Voice of the Jewish Community
Holocaust Remembrance and The Importance of Continuity
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For Unto Every Person There is a Name, participants read the names of Holocaust victims – the six million Jews, including one and a half million children – where they were born and where they died. For many victims on these lists, it is the only time their name, and thus their life, may be remembered each year, as their entire family was murdered or there is no one left to remember them. B’nai B’rith has also provided yellow stars that read “Never Forget the Six Million” available to wear at programs.
B’nai B’rith and our partner organization Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity collaborated to bring “Unto Every Person There is a Name” to 130 university campuses in conjunction with AEPi’s own Holocaust Remembrance Day program, “We Walk to Remember,” which began in 2006. AEPi brothers and other volunteers walk silently across their campuses wearing “Never Forget” stickers provided by B’nai B’rith. We also supplied AEPi with pamphlets on the importance of Yom HaShoah and how each year’s theme relates to the Holocaust. |
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Beyond remembrance, the program offers awareness and education about the Holocaust at a time when few survivors remain to tell the story firsthand.
Why talk with survivors? Our podcast on this topic is a must-listen. We talk with a man who interviews Shoah survivors before live audiences at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
A B’nai B’rith lodge in Paris continued with its yearly trip to Auschwitz for 100 high school students, an undertaking that began in 2005. It also organized a trip of three classes to French Holocaust memorial site Oradour sur Glane
In a suburb of Washington, D.C. this year, an event held at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, “Hate Speech & the Holocaust,” included an afternoon program for teens, followed by an Unto Every Person There is a Name-themed artwork display and exhibit and an early evening interfaith memorial service that honored Holocaust victims and rescuers. Survivors of hate speech also participated in the service. Names of victims were read by U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, many state senators and delegates and representatives of other faith communities.
In addition to commemorating the Holocaust, B’nai B’rith is active in exposing Holocaust denial. B’nai B’rith Canada alerted German authorities to the Holocaust-denying activities of German-Canadian former Green Party of Canada candidate Monika Schaefer, who was subsequently arrested early in 2018. In July 2016, B’nai B’rith Canada had brought attention to a video produced by Schaefer, where she explicitly denied the Holocaust and called it the “most persistent lie in all of history.” The Green Party quickly condemned Schafer’s comments and moved to expel her from the party. Schaefer continued to promote anti-Semitic tropes, which when exposed by B’nai B’rith Canada, helped lead to her arrest.
B’nai B’rith Canada had also contacted German authorities about Monika Schaefer’s brother Alfred Schaefer’s anti-Semitic postings. He collaborated with his sister on Holocaust denial videos, and created his own where he accused Jews of wanting to “destroy” the German people, blamed them for starting both World Wars, as well as the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and called denying the Holocaust, which he referred to as a “Jewish fantasy,” as a “moral obligation.” He was indicted for sedition in Munich in connection with these videos, as well as a sermon he made at a neo-Nazi rally in Dresden, and received a prison sentence in October 2018. “Holocaust denial is once again on the rise, but this important court decision should help deter others from engaging in racist and hateful rhetoric,” B’nai B’rith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn said. “B’nai B’rith will aggressively continue to combat anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and all forms of bigotry and racism.”
In St. Louis, Missouri, the B’nai B’rith event was held at the Jewish Federation building in front of the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center. The entire community was invited to participate in the name-reading ceremony.
As they have for 29 years, volunteers from West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky gathered at B’nai Sholom Congregation in Huntington, West Virginia, for the annual Holocaust remembrance ceremony and a worship service. The B’nai Sholom congregation provided displays to inform participants about the rise of the Nazis and their persecution of Jews and others during the Holocaust.
- Kent State University: http://www.kentwired.com/latest_updates/article_3daf5cf6-3f1e-11e8-8a4f-13d462b2da5e.html
- University of Pittsburgh: https://pittnews.com/article/130741/news/pitt-honors-holocaust-victims-in-annual-remembrance-walk/
- Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois: https://dailynorthwestern.com/2018/04/12/campus/214597/
- Texas A&M University: http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/local-jewish-groups-join-in-march-for-holocaust-remembrance/article_5214fdad-7e8e-522d-a68c-1bd4eb271b36.html
Materials are also posted on the B’nai B’rith website:
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B’nai B’rith International has advocated for global Jewry and championed the cause of human rights since 1843. B’nai B’rith is recognized as a vital voice in promoting Jewish unity and continuity, a staunch defender of the State of Israel, a tireless advocate on behalf of senior citizens and a leader in disaster relief. With a presence around the world, we are the Global Voice of the Jewish Community.
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