HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE

Youth HEAR’s Holocaust Commemoration Committee (HC Committee) is focused on curating new and engaging ways for young adults to emotionally connect and engage with Holocaust education, commemoration, and testimony.

YOM HASHOAH

The cornerstone of Youth HEAR’s calendar, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Commemoration) brings young people together to commemorate the Holocaust. With a focus on facilitating an emotional connection, Youth HEAR’s Yom HaShoah provides an opportunity for young people to engage in their own space and in their own way. 

6 MILLION PROJECT

When was the moment the tragedy of the Holocaust hit home for you?

The 6 Million Project was a social media campaign ran in 2020, where we asked young adults of Sydney’s Jewish community to share when the gravity of the number of 6 million hit home for them, when it was no longer a statistic, but humanised as the magnitude of individual and collective loss that it was, and still is.

Click the images below to watch the testimonials.

ROSH HASHANA GIFTS FOR HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

Since 2021, each Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year), we have partnered with the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants to package and deliver gifts to Holocaust survivors across Sydney to share our grattitude and admiration to those who have inspired the mission of Youth HEAR. We thank Jewish Care and The Sydney Jewish Museum for their support of this project.

PEN PALS

Jade, a member of Youth HEAR, signed up to have a pen pal in April 2020 through the Sydney Jewish Museum. At our Yom HaShosh commemoration in April 2021, Jade met Holocaust Survivor Dasia Black Gutman in person for the first time since the start of their correspondence. This is the footage of their first meeting.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOSE A LIFE?

This is an awareness campaign we produced for our inaugural Yom HaShoah commemoration in 2019. Due to the sheer the scope of loss and destruction of the Holocaust, the true gravity of it can be hard to internalise. By connecting our audience with a single story and a single voice, we were able to deepen the understanding of how powerful the hate-driven Nazi regime was, and help convey the magntitude of its lasting effects on our society.

LIGHT A CANDLE CAMPAIGN

“Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that”.

In Judaism, the flame of a candle symbolically represents the human soul. On Yom HaShoah, we light candles to commemorate the loss of 6 million Jewish lives. In this campaign, we created a movement of young people across our community lighting candles in commemoration so we can truly say never again.

JEWS FROM ARAB LANDS AND IRAN

Youth HEAR members joined with Yallah - the peak representatives of Sephardi and Mizrachi youth in NSW - to discuss Jewish stories not often told in our community, and how we might work together to make sure they have prominence in the future.

IN CONVERSATION WITH HEATHER MORRIS

Youth HEAR hosted Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, for a fascinating Q&A session. Over 100 guests came to hear her speak.