Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem mourns the passing of Dr. Lucien Lazare, Holocaust survivor and Holocaust researcher. Dr. Lazare was born in 1924 in Strasbourg, France, and was a member of the Jewish Resistance in France during World War II. Dr. Lazare dedicated his life to researching and documenting the history of French Jewry during the Holocaust. Over the years, he published numerous studies on the activities of the Jewish Resistance in France and the actions of the Righteous Among the Nations, making a significant contribution to the commemoration and preservation of the memory of this period. Dr. Lazare was also a member of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem starting in 1987, and in 2004 he was appointed Chairman of the Jerusalem Sub-Commission, a role he fulfilled for many years with dedication, professionalism, and deep commitment. His passing is a great loss to Yad Vashem and to the world of research and commemoration. We honor his years of work and his important contribution to the recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations and to Holocaust research. May his memory be a blessing. To view his testimony page on our website: https://www.yadvashem.org/he/education/testimony-films/lazar.html

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A street in the Jewish Quarter of Vilna. On the 23rd and 24th of September 1943 the Vilna ghetto was liquidated. 1,600-2,000 men were sent to camps in Estonia and 1,400-1,700 women were sent to Latvia. In November 1944 fewer than 100 survivors returned to Vilna from the camps.

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Jews at prayer during High Holidays in the Warsaw Ghetto, Poland. Less than a year after the German invasion of Poland, Jewish religious life in Warsaw had been severely restricted. In January 1940, all the synagogues and batei midrash in the city were closed down and public prayer services were banned. On 12 October 1940, Yom Kippur, the Germans announced the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw, and ordered the Jews to move there by the end of the month. Reuven Ben Shem (Feldschuh) wrote: "The prayer room is almost full. The cantor prays boldly and melodiously, and you wouldn't know by looking at him and the worshippers that the world is on the verge of collapse. They are wearing prayer shawls and phylacteries. If you close your eyes for a moment and don't look at these people, at their pinched faces… and just listen to the chanting of their prayers, you would surely think that you happened upon a house of God in a time of peace and harmony." Despite the restrictions and the growing danger, Jews continued to pray and study Torah. Clandestine gatherings persisted in the ghetto, even during the Great Deportation of 1942 and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Even under persecution, Jewish religious life endured.

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Jews at prayer during High Holidays in the Warsaw Ghetto, Poland. Less than a year after the German invasion of Poland, Jewish religious life in Warsaw had been severely restricted. In January 1940, all the synagogues and batei midrash in the city were closed down and public prayer services were banned. On 12 October 1940, Yom Kippur, the Germans announced the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw, and ordered the Jews to move there by the end of the month. Reuven Ben Shem (Feldschuh) wrote: "The prayer room is almost full. The cantor prays boldly and melodiously, and you wouldn't know by looking at him and the worshippers that the world is on the verge of collapse. They are wearing prayer shawls and phylacteries. If you close your eyes for a moment and don't look at these people, at their pinched faces… and just listen to the chanting of their prayers, you would surely think that you happened upon a house of God in a time of peace and harmony." Despite the restrictions and the growing danger, Jews continued to pray and study Torah. Clandestine gatherings persisted in the ghetto, even during the Great Deportation of 1942 and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Even under persecution, Jewish religious life endured.

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Jews assembled next to the train station in Luxembourg's Hollerich Quarter, before their deportation to the extermination camps on 19 September 1942. The Luxembourg Einsatzkommando, subordinate to the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) was in charge of the deportation. The list of Jews slated for deportation was transferred to the civil administration department handling the confiscation and sale of Jewish deportees' property. Allied forces liberated Luxembourg on September 9, 1944. Of the 3,500 Jews living there in 1939, 1,555 survived, by fleeing, hiding, or surviving in the camps; 1,945 were murdered, a third in the camps to which they had been deported from Luxembourg, and the rest in the country itself or in other occupied countries to which they had fled or been deported. Only a few Jews returned after the war.

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