Unto Every Person There is a Name

This year marked the 34th anniversary of the global Shoah memorial initiative, “Unto Every Person There is a Name.” This public recitation of names of Holocaust victims was held around the world on Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes Remembrance Day.

This extremely moving program took place in Atlanta on April 28 in the rotunda of the Georgia State Capitol Building. The Achim/Gate City (Atlanta) Lodge of B’nai B’rith International invited the community to join in marking Holocaust Remembrance Day either at the Georgia State Capitol or virtually from their homes, offices, and schools.

David Kirkland, of Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, speaks during the “Unto Every Person There is a Name” program on April 28 at the Georgia State Capitol.

The “Unto Every Person There is a Name” ceremony provides the opportunity to remember the victims of the Holocaust, six million Jews, among them — one and a half million children, and as the names of victims are read aloud, they are remembered. The annual recitation of the names of victims is one way of posthumously restoring the victims’ names, of commemorating them as individuals. According to organizers, this honors the memory of the victims, grapples with the enormity of the murder, and seeks to combat Holocaust denial and distortion.

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Helen Scherrer-Diamond, president of Atlanta’s B’nai B’rith lodge commented, “For many on these lists, it is the only time their name will be said aloud as their entire family was murdered or there is no one left to remember them. It is important that the Atlanta community join this global effort to memorialize the six million individuals we lost in the Holocaust.”

The project is coordinated by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in consultation with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and enjoys the official auspices of the president of the state of Israel, the Hon. Isaac Herzog. The program is coordinated by Yad Vashem through the efforts of four major Jewish organizations – B’nai B’rith International, Nativ, World Jewish Congress, and World Zionist Organization.

Harry Lutz, the local coordinator of this program for many years for the Atlanta B’nai B’rith lodge says, “the Unto Every Person There is a Name remembrance ceremony is always an incredibly moving experience for me, both hearing names being read and reading aloud the names of victims myself. I am constantly picturing in my mind that there are more than six million of these names.”