Remembering & Honoring the Past

Ensuring Holocaust remembrance is an important objective of B’nai B’rith International. We learn, we teach and we remember.

As we have done for the last quarter century, we again observed Holocaust Remembrance Day with the annual program “Unto Every Person There is a Name.” B’nai B’rith is the official North American sponsor of the program under the auspices of Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust Museum and research center in Jerusalem. Participants in communities across the United States read the names of the victims of the Shoah in public spaces, in cooperation with synagogues and Jewish Community Centers.

We also commemorate the Holocaust with our partner Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), the Jewish fraternity, by participating in the “We Walk to Remember” program, now on 130 college campuses. College students walk silently across campus and then read Holocaust victim names aloud.

B’nai B’rith is at the forefront of Holocaust restitution efforts across Europe. We are a founding member of the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) and we continue to work with an array of governments and organizations to secure reparations for Holocaust survivors and their families.

In December, B’nai B’rith was represented at a U.S. State Department signing of a pact that will make available $60 million in French government funds. The money will be distributed by the U.S. government to victims or heirs of victims who were transported from France to concentration camps by the National Society of French Railways (SNCF).

B’nai B’rith Latin America organized community-wide Holocaust Remembrance Day programs in such places as Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama.

In November, B’nai B’rith Latin America continued its commemoration of the Night of Broken Glass, traditionally seen as the beginning of the Holocaust. On Nov. 9 and 10, 1938 in Germany and Austria, at least 96 Jews were killed, more than 1,000 synagogues were set on fire, nearly 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed and countless homes, libraries and community centers were looted. Events were held in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.