Today is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day when we pause to remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to honor the Survivors who carried unimaginable loss and trauma forward into their lives, their families, and their communities.
At WJCS, remembrance is not abstract. It lives in the people we serve and in the relationships our staff build every day. Through our Jewish Programs and across the agency, you help Survivors stay safe and supported by connecting them to meals, home care, benefits, transportation, and social connection, and by offering the steady presence of someone who checks in and truly cares. In so many moments, what you are really creating is dignity and connection. You are helping someone feel seen, remembered, and not alone.
I read recently about the story of Fania Fainer, a Holocaust survivor who was imprisoned in Auschwitz Birkenau and forced to work in the munitions factory. As Fania’s 20th birthday approached in December 1944, her friend Zlatka Pitluk was determined to have a celebration. A small group of women made a “cake” for Fania from small pieces of smuggled bread decorated with butter and marmalade. They also presented her with a small, heart shaped booklet. Each page opened into an origami “flower” with messages of hope and inspiration in Polish, German, French, and Hebrew, reflecting the fact that each person contributed in her own language.
The messages were as simple as they were profound: “Happy Birthday dear Fania; Those who live through this Win; Don’t cry when you suffer; When you are old put on your glasses and remember what we went through,” and the last wish, “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom!”
Fania sat down at her small bench to work that day and was shocked to discover her gifts. She later recalled, “I looked at the book and it had my name, Fania Landau, and it was for me. Someone remembered my birthday. In hell.”
On Yom Hashoah, that story feels like a reminder of what it means to hold on to humanity in inhuman conditions. A small act of care became a declaration that a person’s life still mattered, even in a place designed to strip people of their identity. That same spirit is present in the work you do. When you help a Survivor get food delivered, reconnect with home care, make it to an appointment, or simply have someone to talk to, you are doing more than solving a problem. You are creating a moment of dignity and connection that says: you matter, we see you, we have not forgotten you.
That is part of what this day asks of us now. To remember. To see people fully. To protect dignity. To push back on dehumanization wherever it shows up. And to carry responsibility forward not only through words, but through actions.
