Holocaust Remembrance Day will begin Wednesday night in Israel, marking the persecution and slaughter of Jews across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
The Memorial Day, which is observed through Thursday, April 24, will be observed with an official state opening ceremony at Yad Vashem’s Warsaw Ghetto Square on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening at 8 p.m.
The ceremony will include remarks delivered by Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They will be joined by Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan, who will light the Memorial Torch, as well as six different Holocaust survivors who will light six separate torches.
The six torches will be lit in sequence by survivors Arie Durst, Monika Barzel, Felix Soren, Rachel Katz, Arie Reiter, and Gad Fartouk. Prepared remarks will also be delivered by survivors Eva Erben and Yehuda Hauptman, who will recite a prayer for the souls for the murdered called “El Maleh Rahamim.”
The ceremony will be broadcasted live with translations available in English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, and Russian. The broadcast will be available via Yad Vashem’s Facebook page.
About the 2025 Holocaust Remembrance Day torch bearers
Leopold “Arie” Durst was born in 1933 in Lwów, Poland — now Ukraine. He survived the Holocaust with his mother, Salomea, after his brother Marian was murdered during the Nazi occupation. The family went into hiding and forged identities, with Arie being raised as a Catholic by a widow in Warsaw.
After escaping a labor camp during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Arie and his mother reached Leśna Góra and survived until liberation.
They later reunited with Arie’s father in Tel Aviv in 1945, after years of not knowing whether or not he had survived. He had served in the ranks of Anders’ Army and obtained entry permits to Israel, then Mandatory Palestine.
Upon arrival, Arie was illiterate, not knowing how to read or write. Once he went to school, he dedicated himself to his studies, earning a role in an academic officers’ medical program.
This would launch him into becoming a doctor, serving in the IDF’s Golani brigade, where he earned a citation for performing surgery under fire. He founded Israel’s first transplant unit, pioneered organ donation awareness, and made significant contributions to surgery and cancer treatment. He was also Head of Surgery at Hadassah Hospital.
Arie, married to Rimona, has three children and eight grandchildren.
Survivor Monika Barzel was born in Berlin, Germany in 1937.
Her father Eugen was a doctor, and her mother Edith was a surgical nurse. Her father escaped to England, with her mother working long hours at Berlin’s Jewish hospital to support her family.
Monika was raised by her grandmother Gertrud, and all three lived in a single room in an apartment block in the city. She was always hungry, contributing some of her earliest memories to be food-focused.
When deportations began in 1941, the hospital staff withheld treatment from patients to protect them. In 1942, Monika's grandmother was deported and killed at Theresienstadt, and Monika lived with her mother at the hospital.
In 1943, she was nearly deported to Auschwitz but was told to get off the train, by a stroke of luck. She contracted diphtheria and survived despite poor conditions, enduring bombings and falling into cellars during air raids. Monika stayed at the hospital until its liberation by the Red Army.
Afterward, she and her mother moved to Sweden and onward to London, where her mother Edith married fellow Holocaust survivor Rudi Friedman.
Monika completed her dentistry studies in London and immigrated to Israel in 1963, settling in Kibbutz Kfar Hanassi. She worked as a dentist across Israel, continuing her career even after the death of her husband, Alan, at age 59.
Monika and her late husband have two children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Felix Sorin was born in 1932 in Mogilev, Belarus, and was the youngest of three children.
His family, despite his father's communist activism, maintained Jewish traditions. In 1939, they moved to Oszmiana, and in 1941, during the German invasion, Felix was separated from his family and left alone in occupied territory.
After roaming for months, he was incarcerated in the Minsk ghetto, escaped, and posed as a Russian orphan. He was later suspected of being Jewish but managed to avoid exposure, thanks to the support of committee member Vasily Orlov, who was later honored as Righteous Among the Nations.
Felix remained in an orphanage until the Red Army liberated the area in 1944. Fearing his family had perished, he registered as a Jew, hoping it would help them find him.
He eventually learned that his father had survived and was in the Red Army. His brother Isaak later reunited with him, and they were rejoined by their parents in Moldova.
Felix later studied at Odessa Polytechnic, becoming a researcher and lecturer. In 1992, he immigrated to Israel, where he is active in survivor organizations and shares his story with youth at Yad Vashem.
Felix married the late Ida, and the two had two children, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Rachel Katz, born Laufman, was born in 1937 in Antwerp, Belgium, to a family of Romanian immigrants. After the German occupation in 1940, her father, Benjamin, was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered.
Rachel and her siblings were hidden by neighbors and eventually taken to a convent for safety. They later lived in hiding with their mother until Belgium was liberated in 1944.
After the war, Rachel attended school and worked to support her family. She immigrated to Israel in 1957, married, and started a family. In 2000, Rachel became active in the YESH Holocaust Children Survivors association and later became its chairperson.
She also worked with the Amcha association, providing emotional and material support to Holocaust survivors. Rachel advocated for survivors' welfare, helping them access legal rights and benefits, particularly for those from North Africa.
Rachel married her husband Shmuel, and together they have two children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Survivor Arie Reiter was the firstborn son of an Orthodox, Hasidic family of five. He was born in 1929 in Vaslui, Romania, where his parents Lazer (Eliezer) and Tova Bella owned a restaurant and a small inn.
He attended local Orthodox Jewish schools, which were eventually shut down by the Romanian regime, riddled with antisemitism, in 1940.
The family’s inn was taken from them, forcing the family to move to a wooden warehouse. His father was then sent to a Romanian forced labor camp where he perished in 1943; Arie and his younger brothers Binyamin and Moshe worked in stores to support themselves and their mother, battling with hunger.
Arie was sent to a labor camp in Romania in January 1944, where he worked under brutal conditions, paving roads and building a bridge. After the Red Army liberated the camp in August 1944, Arie walked 80 kilometers barefoot to his family, weighing only 30 kilograms. They lived in a relative’s cellar after their house was destroyed in bombings.
Arie graduated from the Trade and Economics School and became active in Zionist movements, including Youth Aliyah. In 1947, he sent his brothers to Israel but stayed behind to assist with the immigration campaign. Arie immigrated to Israel in 1951, joining his family in Beersheba.
He worked in the Finance Ministry and at Mizrahi Bank, eventually becoming deputy director. He also earned degrees in Jewish history and was involved in local community service, serving on Beersheba’s religious council and as treasurer of the Negev museum.
Arie contributed to the establishment of the Bnei Akiva yeshiva and Naot Avraham high school and founded the Struma Museum to promote awareness of the Ha’apala movement. In 2002, he was awarded the Yakir Ha’ir (honored citizen) award for his community contributions.
Arie married his wife Yehudit, and the two have five children, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Gad Fartouk was born in 1931 in Nabeul, Tunisia, into an observant Jewish family. His father, Joseph, was a respected community member and textile merchant.
When Nazi Germany occupied Tunisia in 1942, the family was forced to move and live under assumed identities. They faced constant danger, with Joseph hiding and the family surviving on scarce resources, scavenging for food.
Gad’s mother, Ochaya, passed away during this time, and his father Joseph remarried to Mary, who the family saw as their mother.
His father was formerly a synagogue benefactor and textile merchant, maintaining strong relationships with many of his customers despite them not being Jewish. Jewish and Arab families in his city typically even celebrated holidays together, and other merchants knew his family well.
In November 1942, the Nazi regime occupied Tunisia. “We returned from synagogue on Friday night and sat down for dinner. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Two policemen ordered Father to come to the station,” Gad told Yad Vashem. His father refused to travel on Shabbat, and went on foot to the police station where he was detained for several hours before moving to Hamam-Lif the next day, changing their identities.
Germans entered houses looking for Jews, leading his father to go into hiding. His two older brothers were sent to hide in the forest. Days later, his dad reappeared and brought his wife and children to his brother Basha, who was a “protected worker” due to his role in the French Navy.
The ran out of money and jewelry, which were used as bribes for Germans conducting manhunts. “We were hungry and skinny, and looked everywhere for food,” relates Gad. “Mother sent me to the market dressed as a local in the hope that I would be able to obtain food. We would go to the field next to the house and gather mallow, which became our staple diet. We scavenged for food in the bakery’s garbage bins, and I brought home soiled flour. We sifted it and made a ‘meal.’”
After the German retreat in 1943, Gad reunited with his father, and the family returned to Nabeul. Gad celebrated his bar mitzvah before moving to Tunis, where he joined the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. In 1948, he immigrated to Israel and joined Kibbutz Beit Zera and later Kibbutz Karmia. He also served in the Palmach. Gad eventually settled in Ashkelon and became a professional photographer.
He and his late wife, Mona, have four children, thirteen grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. In Gad’s words, “That is my revenge for the suffering caused by the Nazis.”
Who are the survivors sharing remarks?
Eva Erben, born in 1930 in Decin, Czechoslovakia, grew up in a secular Jewish family. After the German occupation in 1939, the family faced discrimination, including being forced to wear the Yellow Star, leading Eva being barred from school. She and her neighborhood Jewish friends ended up learning with a private teacher in each others homes due to efforts from the Jewish parents within the community.
After their home was seized, her family moved to a small apartment and was eventually also banned from entering stores.
In 1941, they were sent to Theresienstadt, where Eva worked in the vegetable garden and performed in the children's opera Brundibar.
In October 1944, her father was deported to Auschwitz, followed by Eva and her mother. Upon arrival, Eva was advised to lie about her age to avoid selection for the gas chambers. She and her mother were sent to dig trenches and later forced on a death march. During the march, her mother died in her arms, and was buried in a mass grave.
She narrowly escaped death after German soldiers nearly shot her, before one said “shame to waste a bullet on her. She will soon die anyway.”
She dragged herself to the village of Postrekov, losing consciousness. However, she survived after being found and cared for by a Czech couple, Ludmila and Kristof Jahn, who hid her until the war ended. Yad Vashem later recognized the Jahns as Righteous Among the Nations.
“They saved me, not just by hiding me from the Germans, but with their boundless love, which was given in the knowledge that I could not repay them. I owe them my life,” says Eva.
After liberation, Eva mourned the loss of her parents. She moved to a Jewish orphanage, studied nursing, and later married Petr, a fellow survivor.
On the day of her liberation, she felt intense emotions. “I cried for the first time, after all those years of war. I mourned my father and my mother, and the fact that I was the only one to survive. I felt defeated, not victorious.”
The couple met at a party celebrating the establishment of the State of Israel. The two married and then immigrated to Israel in 1949, where they built their family.
She and her late husband, Petr, have three children, nine grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren.
Reciting the memorial prayer “El Maleh Rahamim” is Yehuda Hauptman, born in 1938 and was the first of four children. Born in Topolcany, Czechoslovakia, the family moved to Budapest, Hungary in 1941 to escape the worsening conditions for Jews under the fascist Slovak regime. After the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944, Yehuda's family was forced into a ghetto, wearing the token Yellow Star, and endured starvation and hardship.
His father was sent to a labor camp but managed to escape twice, crossing frozen rivers, before being re-captured.
During this time, Yehuda's grandparents helped care for the children, and Yehuda scavenged for food to bring back to his family. The family eventually found refuge in a Swedish-protected house. Yehuda's father returned after the Soviets liberated Budapest in 1945.
His grandparents, who were also confined to the ghetto, helped him learn religious texts.
In 1949, due to his mother’s illness, Yehuda and his sister Rachel were sent to Austria as refugees, posing as another family’s children. They later traveled to Israel in 1950. Yehuda joined Kibbutz Sha'albim, worked in agriculture, and later enlisted in the IDF, serving in multiple wars. He later settled in Moshav Tkuma with his wife, Yehudit, where he worked the land and held public positions.
On October 7, 2023, Yehuda and Yehudit were evacuated from their home near the Gaza border due to security concerns. They were displaced for four months, when he was itching to get home. Despite the displacement, Yehuda remained hopeful of returning and rebuilding his home.
Yehuda and Yehudit have six children, 23 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
