Students will gather on the Plaza of the Americas tonight to remember those who died in the Holocaust more than 64 years ago.
UF's Jewish Student Union is hosting the Holocaust Remembrance Day event at 6 p.m., said Jason Attermann, the group's president. The event will feature two guest speakers, UF history professor Geoffrey Giles and UF alumnus and Lost Boy of Sudan Peter Ter, who will talk about the Holocaust and genocide, said event organizer Danica Samuels.
Yellow memorial candles will be distributed to the crowd, and a candlelight vigil will be held, Samuels said. There will also be time for students to write letters to government officials about genocide issues.
After the ceremony concludes, students will walk to Hillel, where the candles will be placed around the building and kept burning for 24 hours to commemorate those who perished in the Holocaust.
The movie "Schindler's List" will be shown at Hillel to further educate students on the Holocaust, Samuels said.
Yom HaShoah, as today is known in Israel, is observed as a day of commemoration for the estimated six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
The event is meant to encourage students to take a more active role in preventing another major occurrence of anti-Semitism and genocide, Samuels said.
To some, the event is more significant in light of recent campus events, said UF sophomore Josh Ludin, citing the anti-Semitic graffiti painted on the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house in early April.
"Students may disagree on many things, but there is one thing I hope we can all agree on," Ludin said, "And that is to never let something like the Holocaust happen again, to anyone."
