GNF honors the men and women who were the shining examples of courage and defiance against the overwhelming evil of the Holocaust

The Holocaust also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during WWII a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler its allies and collaborators. Many scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis’ systematic murder of millions of people in other groups including ethnic Poles the Romani Soviet civilians Soviet prisoners of war people with disabilities homosexuals Jehovah’s Witnesses and other political and religious opponents. By this definition the total number of Holocaust victims is between 11 million and 17 million people. Fortunately in every ghetto in every deportation train in every labor camp even in the death camps the will to live and resist was strong and took many forms. Fighting with the few weapons that could be found individual acts of defiance and protest the courage of obtaining food and water under the threat of death the superiority of refusing to allow the Germans their final wish to gloat over panic and despair were all common forms of human resistance. Even passivity was a form of resistance. To die with dignity was a form of resistance. There are many recorded examples of resistance both inside and outside the ghettos and camps. There were large partisan groups and an estimated 30000 people actively fought the Nazis and saved thousands of Jewish civilians from extermination. Most were Jewish from many different European countries but there were also non-Jews, men and women both who recognized and stood up to the evil around them. Many gave their lives but some survived to tell the world. We honor all of these people whose courage and bravery helped to save many.