Holocaust Memorial Day Reflects on Evolving Remembrance Practices
January 27 was formally designated Holocaust Memorial Day by a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005. However, how we remember the Holocaust has evolved over the decades and even now, some 80 years on, it is a story of remembrance that is still unfinished.
The poignant short handwritten note from 1942 begins, "Dear boy," expressing the writer's delight with his son's May message and hope to be reunited. The writer, Alfred Josephs, was sending this message to his teenage son Wolfgang, who had escaped to England with his mother. At the time, Alfred was being held at the Westerbork detention camp in The Netherlands, yet he was still able to communicate through the Red Cross.
The note is among thousands of documents preserved at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London, one of the world's largest Holocaust archives.
