Remembrance events to focus on Holocaust survivors

This year’s Yom Hashoah remembrance events will focus on the Holocaust survivors who came to Australia and rebuilt their lives under the theme ‘Survivors in Australia: Rebuilding Lives’.

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) will host annual commemorations on April 13 and 14, exploring how Holocaust survivors arrived in Australia with little more than hope and determination, then rebuilt their lives, raised families and helped shape the vibrant Australian Jewish community.

For the first time since 2022, there will be a standalone North Shore commemoration, with all synagogues on the North Shore involved in planning.

“This year’s Yom Hashoah theme reflects not only the endurance of survivors, but their remarkable capacity to restore what was destroyed,” said Shoah Remembrance Committee chair at the NSW JBD Dane Stern.

“Having lost families, homes and the fabric of their pre-war lives, survivors who came to Australia transformed profound loss into lives of resilience and contribution. This year’s commemorations will explore the story of survivor migration to Australia, the deep appreciation survivors had for Australia as a land of freedom, and the enormous contribution survivors made to Australian life.”