EEO INSIGHTS Commander, Navy Reserve Force, 1915 Forrestal Drive, Norfolk, VA 23551

Commander Navy Reserve Volume 3, Issue 2 April 17, 2019 Force Equal Employment Opportunity Team Days of Remembrance Albert Armstrong EEO Specialist 1915 Forrestal Drive The U.S Congress established the Days of Norfolk, Virginia 23551-4615 Remembrance as the Nation’s annual Phone: (757) 322-5619 commemoration of the Holocaust. Each year, the DSN: 262-5619 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [email protected] (USHMM) leads the nation in commemorating the Days of Remembrance. Nicole Young EEO Specialist The internationally recognized date for Holocaust 1915 Forrestal Drive Remembrance Day corresponds to the 27th day of Norfolk, Virginia 23551-4615 Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. It marks the Phone: (757) 322-5618 anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. DSN: 262-5618 [email protected] In Hebrew, Holocaust Remembrance Day is called Yom Hashoah. When the actual date of Yom Hashoah falls on a Friday, the state of Israel observes Yom Hashoah on the preceding Thursday. Commander Navy Reserve When it falls on a Sunday, Yom Hashoah is Force Command Climate observed on the following Monday. In the United States, Days of Remembrance Specialist Team runs from the Sunday before Yom Hashoah through the following Sunday. This year Yom Hashoah falls on Thursday, May 2nd. Reserve Force Command CCS: The Holocaust was the methodical persecution and murder of six million European Chief Shirley Price Jews and the millions of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. To the 1915 Forrestal Drive anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, and an alien Norfolk, Virginia 23551-4615 threat to German racial purity and community. In an address to German Phone: (757) 322-5660 parliament, Hitler stated: “The peoples [of the earth] will soon realize that DSN: 262-5660 Germany under National Socialism does not desire the enmity of other peoples. I [email protected] want once again to be a prophet…if the international Finance-Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the peoples of the earth once again Chief Rico Terrell into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of earth, and thus a 1915 Forrestal Drive Jewish victory, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” Other groups Norfolk, Virginia 23551-4615 were also targeted and killed including at times their children because of their Phone: (757) 322-5625 perceived racial and biological inferiority. These included Roma (Gypsies), people DSN: 262-5625 with disabilities, and others such as Poles, Soviet civilians, and blacks. [email protected] Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds. Navy Air Forces Reserve CCS: Among them were Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. Senior Chief Jimmy Escamilla Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 42,000 NAS North Island, California camps and other incarceration sites (including ghettos). Millions of people were Phone: (619) 545-4147 imprisoned and abused in the various types of Nazi camps. Only a small fraction of DSN: 735-4147 those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived. [email protected]

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imprisonedBusiness Tagline or Motto and abused in the various types of Nazi camps. Only a small fraction of those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived. From 1938, Jews in the camps were identified by a yellow star sewn onto their prison uniforms, a perversion of the Jewish Star of David symbol. After 1939, and with some variation from camp to camp, the categories of prisoners were easily identified by a marking system combining a colored inverted triangle with lettering. The badges sewn onto prisoner uniforms enabled SS guards to identify the alleged grounds for incarceration .

Political prisoners, such as Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists wore red triangles. Non-German prisoners were identified by letters indicating their nationality: for example, P stood for Polish, F for French. Common criminals wore green. “Asocials” (including Roma, nonconformists, vagrants, and other groups) wore black or in the case of Roma in some camps brown triangles. Jehovah's Witnesses wore purple and homosexuals wore pink triangles.

The two triangles forming the Jewish star badge would both be yellow unless the Jewish prisoner was included in one of the other prisoner categories. A Jewish political prisoner, for example, would be identified with a yellow triangle beneath a red triangle. Days of Remembrance raises awareness that democratic institutions and values are not simply sustained, but need to be appreciated, nurtured, and protected.

The Holocaust illustrates the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping in any society. Anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and racism can still be found throughout the world, including the United States. The goal of the Department of Defense’s observation of Holocaust Memorial Day is to remember the atrocities of the Third Reich in hope that “Never Again” is a consciously and faithfully enforced promise. Silence and indifference to the suffering of others, or to the infringement of civil rights in any society, can however unintentionally perpetuate these problems.

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must at that moment become the center of the universe.” - Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor

Reference https://www.deomi.org/human-relations/special-observances.cfm 2