• Sebastian Scheiner / AP

    An Ultra Orthodox Jewish man visits the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, May 1. Israel will mark its annual Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, May, 2.

    Observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day begins in Israel

    By Katie Cannon, Senior Multimedia Editor

    I can offer no comment more powerful than what my friend, Jodi Halkin Furman, posted as her Facebook status today. She has been kind enough to allow me to share it with you:

    "Today is Yom Hashoah -- Holocaust Remembrance Day. My grandfather (Zaide Jack for those of you who knew him) was in Auschwitz and experienced unspeakable horror -- his wife and child were murdered in the gas chamber-- he lost both of his parents and ALL of his siblings except one, he left the camp weighing under 80 pounds. My grandmother was in a work camp, forced to toil for free -- she lost both of her parents, her two sisters and her brother. Yet from that horror, sprung joy and hope -- they married, had two children, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren -- they built a beautiful life, a wonderful home and a loving family. Their stories are but two of the millions out there-- I will NEVER forget the Holocaust, I hope you won't either."

  • Legendary photojournalist Ruth Gruber recalls documenting the Holocaust

    By Elena Grothe

    Almost 100 years old now, photojournalist Ruth Gruber has worn many hats throughout her extraordinary career. Writer, lecturer and once the youngest Ph.D in the world, Ruth took on a dangerous secret mission for the Roosevelt administration during the Nazi Germany period and photographed Holocaust refugees. A documentary of her life, 'Ahead of Time,' airs on Showtime this evening. See a selection of her images and check out Ann Curry's fascinating interview with Ruth, below.

    Ruth Gruber

    Aboard the Runnymede Park, Holocaust survivors painted a swastika on the Union Jack to protest the attack of the ship in July, 1947.

    Ruth Gruber

    Mother and child refugees aboard the Runnymede Park, 1947

    Ruth Gruber

    Refugees aboard the Runnymede Park in 1947.

    Ruth Gruber

    A wounded refugee, center, from the ship Exodus on the dock in Haifa in 1947.

    Reel Inheritance Films

    Reel Inheritance Films

    Ruth Gruber in her New York City apartment.

    Ruth Gruber, who became the world's youngest Ph.D at age 20, risked her life to bring Jewish Holocaust survivors to America. TODAY's Ann Curry speaks with the legendary photojournalist.

  • Janek Skarzynski / AFP - Getty Images

    Bosnian Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric prays in the former German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau on February 1, 2011. A large number of Muslim dignitaries are visiting Auschwitz to pay tribute to the millions of Jews and others who were systematically killed during the Holocaust -- a visit made to fight anti-Semitism and bridge cultural rifts.

    Muslim dignitaries at Auschwitz to honor Jews killed during the Holocaust.

  • Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorated around the world

    By Mish Whalen

    International Holocaust Remembrance day marks the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, on Jan. 27, 1945.

    Janek Skarzynski / AFP - Getty Images

    Former prisoners stand in front of the monument commemorating victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau, former Nazi death camp during a ceremony marking 66 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex on January 27, 2011 in Oswiecim.

    Markus Schreiber / AP

    Students pass a red rose at the Gleis 17 (Track 17) memorial at the train station Grunewald on the international Holocaust remembrance day in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday, on Jan. 27, 2011. From Oct. 1941 until Feb. 1945 the train station was one of the major sites of deportations of Berlin's Jewish community.

    Markus Schreiber / AP

    A man walks along the Gleis 17 (Track 17) memorial with the name of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz at the train station Grunewald on the international Holocaust remembrance day in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday, on Jan. 27, 2011.

    Sean Gallup / Getty Images

    A survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camps walk through the grounds of the Auschwitz I memorial and former concentration camp on the 66th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 2011 in Oswiecim, Poland. Auschwitz was the biggest Nazi concentration camp during World War II and is infamous for its gas chambers where hundreds of thousands of Jews and other victims were murdered.

    Menahem Kahana / AFP - Getty Images

    People visit the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on January 27, 2011.

    Oliver Weiken / EPA

    A visitor views the Hall of Names in the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, on January 27, 2011.

    Marko Drobnjakovic / AP

    People gather in front of a monument at the site of the World War II Nazi concentration camp of Sajmiste, where some 48,000 Jews, Serbs and Roma perished, in Belgrade, Serbia, on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011.

  • Two-thirds of Jews killed in Holocaust identified

     

    Baz Ratner / Reuters

    An employee returns a box containing tapes to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum's archive in Jerusalem, in this August 10, 2010 file photo. A list of confirmed names of Jews killed by the Nazis in World War Two has reached the four million mark, Israel's Holocaust museum announced on December 21, 2010, saying the identity of all six million dead may never be known.

    AP says: 

    Yad Vashem has made the recovery of the names a main mission in order to keep the memory of the murdered Jews alive.

    Yad Vashem says names are recovered through people who remembered the murdered Jews and by combing archival lists and other documentation.

    The task is especially difficult because entire families were wiped out and documents were destroyed during the Nazi genocide.

    Baz Ratner / Reuters

    A visitor looks at a video installation at the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem.

    Yannis Behrakis / Reuters

    A man stands under pictures of Jews killed in the Holocaust in the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem.

    Menahem Kahana / AFP - Getty Images

    Tourists visit the Hall of Names where names and photos of Jews who perished under the Nazi regime are stored at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem.

  • Wojciech Pacewicz / EPA

    The ruined interior of one of the barracks of the World War ll Nazi extermination camp Majdanek, now a musem, following a fire in Lublin, Poland, on August 10. The barrack, storing shoes of the camp's former prisoners, went down in flames overnight, the cause of the blaze is yet to be determined.

    AFP / Getty Images file

    A pile of human bones and skulls is seen in 1944 at the Nazi concentration camp of Majdanek in the outskirts of Lublin, the second largest death camp in Poland after Auschwitz, following its liberation in 1944 by Russian troops.

    Fire at death camp destroys shoes of Nazi victims

    A fire swept through a barrack at the former Nazi death camp of Majdanek, destroying more than half the building and possibly 10,000 shoes of Holocaust victims.

    Above are the burned shoes, and a photograph after the Russian liberation of the camp in 1944 - a grim reminder of what those shoes represent.

    Read the full story

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