The President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which has set the week of April 22-29 as “Days of Remembrance” for the victims of Nazism, has been urged to change the date to April 19 instead, the historic day when the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began in 1943.
William Stern, executive director of the Workmen’s Circle, in a communication to author Elie Wiesel, chairman of the Commission, wrote that “Ever since April 19, 1943, when the first news of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising reached the free world, there has been a sizeable segment of the Jewish community of which we are a part, which has annually on that date, commemorated hot only the courage of the heroes of the uprising, but the tragedy of the Holocaust itself.” Stern stressed the need to begin the commemorative ceremonies that are being planned on April 19 rather than April 22 to keep within historic perspective and to avoid excluding April 19 observances from the pattern of such remembrance.”
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