Today marks the 20th anniversary of the “Days of Remembrance” that memorialize the victims of the Holocaust.
The weeklong event coincides with the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 18, said Leo Leckie, executive assistant in the Office of Diversity.
“Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day that has been set aside for remembering the victims of the Holocaust and for reminding Americans for what happened to civilized people when bigotry, hatred and indifference reign. The day’s principal message is that another Holocaust must never be allowed to happen,” said Leckie.
According to Leckie, Holocaust Remembrance Day was created by a unanimous act of Congress in 1980, which also created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. This was done in order to encourage annual national and civic commemorations in the United States.
Holocaust Remembrance Day was set to commemorate victims on Yom Hashoah, the date of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
The week includes films, special and keynote addresses, workshops, lectures, the governor’s proclamation, a candle-lighting and a reading by a Holocaust survivor.
Ronald Smelser, a history professor and lecturer during the week, will offer a workshop April 14.
“It will be a distillation of the Holocaust history and background of how and why it happened. I am not an expert on Jewish history, but my field is Modern Germany-it’s my specialization-so I’m coming from a perpetrator angle about Hitler’s regime and World War II,” Smelser said.
Smelser also teaches a history course in the fall called Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
“We need to regularly be reminded of what nations are capable of under certain circumstances, like mass murder,” Smelser said.
All events except the workshop are free and the Office of Diversity in Room 204 of the Park Building is handing out 2004 Days of Remembrance stars and posters.
For more information and details about events, contact the Office of Diversity at 581 7569 or visit www.diversity.utah.edu.