Holocaust Remembrance Day
Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, was first observed in 1953 to remember and honor the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust and to celebrate those who survived. In 2016, the Ackerman Center began commemorating the day by having students, staff, faculty, and members of the community recite poems in various languages.
Mark Your Calendars
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
We will once again be inviting members of the UT Dallas and larger DFW community to join us as we commemorate Yom HaShoah.
Poems of the Holocaust
The Ackerman Center faculty has created a collection of important Holocaust poems. Read the 18 poems that they selected (pdf). The Ackerman Center has held multiple workshops with students and faculty to translate several of these poems into more than a dozen languages, and we are in the process of compiling them. We have produced a collection of translations of Holocaust poems into several languages such as Farsi (pdf), Spanish, Portuguese, Urdu, and Arabic (pdf).
Highlights from Past Holocaust Remembrance Days
“Death Fugue” (2016)
The first of our translation workshops produced translations of this iconic Paul Celan poem in multiple languages. Several of those translations were read during our inaugural Holocaust Remembrance Day event in 2016.
“Like a Bull” (2017)
Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Prof. Fred Turner kicked off this year’s event by reading Miklós Radnóti’s prophetic poem in Hungarian and English, respectively. The poem was also the focus of our translation workshops in 2017.
LabSynthE Online Exhibit “One Breath Poem” (2018)
In 2018, UT Dallas’s LabSynthE created the interactive exhibit, “One Breath Poem” that attendees could participate with during the event.
“Holocaust Cantata” (2019)
In 2019, Dr. Jonathan Palant conducted this special musical performance featuring the UTD Choir, which was accompanied by cello and piano and readings by Dr. Ozsváth and Prof. Turner.
5th Anniversary of Event (2020)
The Ackerman Center’s observation of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, has become a hallmark event that has grown every year in size and scope. 2020’s major translation project was the poem “Letter to My Wife” by Hungarian poet, Miklós Radnóti.
View a special presentation of the translations. Additionally, you can listen to Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth read about the moment that Budapest was liberated from her memoir, When the Danube Ran Red.
Special Two-Part Event (2021)
This year the Ackerman Center was presented in two parts, with each part featuring multiple special guest speakers: “Remembering Resistance: The 1942 Tuczyn Ghetto Uprising” and “NGO Mnemonics and the Documentary Film Uprising of the Doomed.”
“Testimony” (2022)
This year, we transitioned back to an in-person commemoration, featuring the poem “Testimony” by Dan Pagis. Additionally, there was a special screening of the short animation video, “A Lasting Image,” featuring testimony by Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth.
#WeRemember (2023)
In addition to our traditional in-person event, the Ackerman Center encouraged our followers to take a photo of themselves and share it on social media with the hashtags #WeRemember and #AckermanCenter.
Two-Part Event (2024)
This year, we commemorated Yom HaShoah with both an in-person and virtual program. Following the traditional in-person program, a virtual storytelling session featured the testimony of Holocaust survivor Judy Weissenberg Cohen.
