Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Claims Conference Associate Executive Vice President in Israel, Tziona Koenig-Yair and Holocaust survivors and their families joined members of the Knesset, ambassadors and representatives of aid organizations at a meeting of the Special Committee for the Treatment of Holocaust Survivors at the Knesset. Three survivors were invited to speak, including Claims Conference Board member Miriam Griver and Claims Conference Vice President Ambassador Colette Avital. Ambassador Avital said, “International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day on which parliaments, legislatures, and governments around the world try to remember not only the victims, but also the lesson.”

One of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, 87-year-old Tova Friedman, visited the Claims Conference office with her grandson, Aron Goodman. Since 2021, they have been educating people about the Holocaust on their popular TikTok channel “TovaTok.” Aron began the channel to combat antisemitism on TikTok by sharing his grandmother’s experiences as a five-year-old Holocaust survivor. Tova has also been featured in Claims Conference initiatives: Reckonings, I Survived Auschwitz: Remember This and #CancelHate.

The next day, Tova was the guest speaker at the commemorative ceremony marking the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism in the German Bundestag. She addressed the Members of the Bundestag, saying, “I am among the diminishing number of survivors who can still bear witness. We do so not to reopen wounds, but to prevent amnesia. History has shown us that forgetting is never neutral; it is dangerous.” You may find her full speech here.

On January 27, the second season of “Testimonies – Interviews with Holocaust Survivors,” a collaborative project between the Claims Conference and German broadcast network ZDF, was released. 12 additional Holocaust survivors were interviewed, including Ruth Pisarek. Here she is showing a picture of her and her brother during Chanukah in Berlin while recording her testimony. All 27 interviews are now available online. You may access them here.

The Claims Conference’s Survivor Speakers Bureau facilitated several events featuring Holocaust survivors in California, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. On January 26, Polish-born Holocaust survivor and Claims Conference Speakers Bureau volunteer, Michael Zamczyk, shared his testimony at the San Jose City Hall in California. Maya Tripp from Jewish Family Services Silicon Valley said, “Michael was amazing. His story was interesting and emotional, and he is truly an inspiring person.”

In Northern New Jersey, Claims Conference President Gideon Taylor was invited to a special Café Europa to honor Holocaust survivors in the community and Jewish Family and Children’s Services volunteers at the conclusion of The Great Mitzvah Race. In less than 30 days, the agency successfully delivered over $60k in food gift cards to over 200 Holocaust survivor clients as part of the race against time.

The Claims Conference released new data on the Jewish Holocaust survivors living around the world. The data shows approximately 196,600 Jewish Holocaust survivors alive in more than 90 countries. This updated snapshot of the global survivor population offers essential context on the aging survivor population and the ongoing need for support and remembrance. More information about this data is available at: https://www.claimscon.org/Holocaust-survivor-data-2026/. Now, more than ever, our mission at the Claims Conference centers on honoring Holocaust survivors and using modern technology to share their eyewitness testimonies, ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust are remembered and accessible to future generations. As we have learned from the 16 surveys across 11 countries, the success of our Survivor Speakers Bureau and the positive reception of our VR project, there is a willingness and desire for Holocaust education. We must, and we will, answer this call.