A program of “memorials of spirit In the creative works of arts and letters” will be launched In connection with the 30th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it was announced by Josef Rosensaft, president of the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Survivors’ Associations.
“In memory of the heroic martyrs of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which will be observed in April 1973,” said Rosensaft “we, the surviving witnesses who are branded by the mark of Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka and Auschwitz, of the Warsaw Ghetto and Babi Yar, renew our determination to continue bearing the Torch of Remembrance of the Holocaust and its legacy through a program of publications and literary swards.”
This program will give recognition to and encourage writers and artists “who have given their talents to express the Jewish people’s spirit, martyrdom and bravery in the struggle against Nazi tyranny and persecution.” Dedicated to six million Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust, the Bergen – Belsen World Federation will sponsor the publication of a definitive comprehensive history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by a group of historians of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This will be a companion volume to a similar study on Armed Jewish Resistance to the Nazis recently completed.
THEY WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN
The Federation will also present two Warsaw Ghetto Memorial Awards of $5000 each for the best creative works in literature, history, art or music using the Warsaw Ghetto as its theme; and 10 Remembrance Awards of $2500 each for works of distinction in the literature of the Holocaust, the winners to be selected by the International Jury of the Remembrance Award and the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Associations.
In addition, an international Conference on Holocaust Studies of 50 scholars will be held in London in 1974 at the University of London, Jointly sponsored with the Hebrew University and the Remembrance Award Jury. A special memorial meeting of commemoration will be held in New York next April on the occasion of the actual 30th anniversary to be sponsored by the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Associations. Similar commemorative events will be held throughout the US, Canada and Israel. A series of new books dealing with the experience of the Holocaust will be published by the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Press.
“Through this program.” Rosensaft said, “we hope to live up to the dream of the Holocaust martyrs who died in despair with only one prayer–that they not be forgotten.”
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