The campus community took part Thursday in the "Reading of the Names," a daylong program on the front steps of Moseley Center organized by Elon Hillel and the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life as part of Holocaust Remembrance Week.
Victims of the Holocaust were remembered throughout the day Thursday as Elon University student, faculty and staff volunteers stood by the entrance to Moseley Center to read thousands of their names aloud during Yom HaShoah.
For many of the 6 million people murdered by the Nazis for their beliefs, sexual orientation or ethnicity, a name is all that exists to tell the world they were once here. There are no photos. There are no graves. Increasingly, as Holocaust survivors reach their 80s and 90s, there are fewer people alive today who knew the victims at all.
“This is a tradition Elon has hosted for many years,” Ginny Vellani, acting director of Elon Hillel, said of the university’s Reading of the Names on April 16, 2015. “It’s an opportunity for the campus to reflect on the Holocaust by hearing victim names as you walk by, and it’s a way to honor the dead. Within Judaism, your name is very important.”
The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and Elon’s own Holocaust Remembrance Week coincides with similar events at colleges and universities across the country.
The Reading of the Names took place toward the end of the week, which included a special table Tuesday at College Coffee, a screening of the film “One Survivor Remembers,” and tables inside Moseley Center with cards from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for students to find stories of both victims and survivors.
Elon’s programming concludes Friday evening with a special Indian Shabbat dinner in Lakeside Dining Hall. A commemoration of the Holocaust with readings and the lighting of a Yarhzeit candle takes place prior to the meal.
A student committee helped organize the week’s events: Nikki Gelfand, Vanessa Vargo, Alanna Fridfertig, Jamie Buren, Hailey Fleishman, Amber Bates, Allie Bennett and Melanie Insley.
On Thursday, a table near the lectern in front of Moseley Center contained brightly colored ribbons representing different groups impacted by the Holocaust. Yellow ribbons represented Jewish victims. Red ribbons symbolized political dissidents. Blue ribbons stood for people targeted because of a disability.
The Nazis also murdered people of color, including gypsies in Eastern Europe, as well as gays and lesbians. “There’s a misconception that Jews were the only ones involved in the Holocaust,” Vellani said. “There were many identities targeted by the Nazis and a lot of those groups don’t receive recognition.”
Hailey Fleishman, a sophomore psychology major from Fort Myers, Fla., coordinated the Reading of the Names as a student volunteer with Hillel. She said her ancestors escaped Europe during the pogroms of the 1930s.
Fleischman said she hopes passersby take a moment to reflect on the names and what they represent at a time when the number of Holocaust survivors diminishes with each passing year.
“It hits you, sitting here all day, and we don’t even get through the names we do have,” Fleischman said. “You realize the numbers and how every name read today was once an individual.”