KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — On Thursday, the Knoxville Jewish Alliance and the Tennessee Holocaust Commission will host an event to commemorate Yom HaShoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day. This day corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar and marks the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This year, it fell on May 6.
The event on May 16 is named "My Holocaust Legacy: An Evening with Dr. Alex Kor." It is set to take place at 7 p.m. at the Arnstein Jewish Community Center, located at 6800 Deane Hill Drive. Kor is from Indiana and is the son of Holocaust survivors, and a release from organizers said Kor helped establish an exhibit in his mother's name to honor her, named Eva Kor from Auschwitz to Indiana.
Kor also recorded his father's story, another Holocaust survivor, in a book. Kor also examined his parents' lives as survivors while discussing the horrors of the Holocaust in the book. Attendees will also be able to visit the Arnold Schwarzbart Gallery to see the "Perpetrators of the Holocaust" exhibit — depicting the people who carried out violence and terror in the Holocaust. It will be on display until May 31.
The event will start with a candle-lighting ceremony to honor the victims of the Holocaust, according to the release from organizers. Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon will also present a proclamation in observance of Jewish American History Month, which runs through May.
Around 6 million Jewish people were killed in it, along with several other groups including Soviet prisoners of war, the Roma, members of the LGBTQ+ community and people with disabilities.
The Warsaw ghetto was the largest Jewish ghetto in German-occupied Europe, according to historians, housing around 400,000 Jewish people. In 1942, the German SS and police units would carry out deportations from the ghetto to the Treblinka killing center, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. During the "Great Action," Nazis deported around 265,000 Jews and killed around 35,000 inside the ghetto.
In response, Jewish underground organizations created an armed self-defense unit known as the "Jewish Combat Organization," according to historians. In October, they obtained pistols and explosives from the Home Army in Poland.
A battle erupted in Jan. 1943 between the German SS and police as they tried to continue mass deportations. As a result, deportations were suspended on Jan. 21 and residents started preparing for an uprising.
On April 19, before Passover, it started. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising lasted 27 days and started after the Jewish Combat Organization learned that a final deportation was being planned by the Germans. The Germans brought around 2,000 soldiers and police with artillery and tanks for the deportation.
The Jewish Combat Organization forced them to retreat outside the ghetto wall on the first day of fighting. However, German forces ended up razing the Jewish ghetto. It was the largest Jewish uprising in World War II, and was the first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe, according to the museum.
Yom HaShoah is distinct from the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January and is mostly observed by Jewish communities