If you are out and about tonight and notice buildings, parking garages, carports, etc brightly lit in yellow, there is a reason for it.
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the lights are a way to show the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust will not be forgotten.
Today also marks the 79th anniversary of the day when Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz, the notorious concentration camp where between 1940 and 1945, more than 1 million people were murdered by Nazis.
Why yellow?
“During the Holocaust, the German Nazis and their allies forced Jews to wear yellow stars of David on their clothing, marking them as ‘the other’, ” observed Doris Zelinsky, President of Greater New Haven Holocaust Memory (GNHHM) and the daughter of two Holocaust survivors.
“Yellow lights remind us of these yellow stars, the beginning of what became the systematic torture and murder of six million people simply because they were Jewish. The color yellow highlights how slippery the slide of hate can be,” Zelinsky added.
Greater New Haven Holocaust Memory is a nonprofit that cares for the New Haven Memorial and uses its story to bring forward the searing lessons of the Holocaust.
“Lessons from nearly eighty years ago are lessons that remain so apt for our times,” Zelinski emphasized.
“Our Memorial was the first built on public land in the United States. This unique legacy gives us a special obligation in New Haven. That’s why we will light up our landmarks with bright yellow lights on January 27, continuing the strong tradition of the Memorial’s founders for our community to both remember and learn,” Zelinsky explained.
Following are some of the places that will light up with yellow lights today: Orange Town Hall and Or Shalom Synagogue, Branford Town Hall, the Branford James Blackstone Memorial Library, New Haven City Hall, the “Fusco Building” at 555 Long Wharf, the Towers on Tower Lane, Union Train Station, the Temple Street Garage, the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 205 Church Street, and Guilford Town Hall.
Other notable locations outside Connecticut are Niagara Falls and the Empire State Building.