Yom HaShoah: A Prayer

May G-d remember the souls of all the communities of Israel in the European Diaspora who were sacrificed on the altar during the years of the Holocaust (1939-1945): six million men and women, boys and girls, young men and women, infants and the elderly, who were cruelly slain and butchered, and mass murdered in their dwellings places and cities, and in the forests and villages.

Those surviving were brought like sheep to the slaughter to the concentration camps where they died unnatural deaths, and were burned to ashes in the furnaces of the terrible camps of destruction in Germany and Poland, and in the rest of the occupied countries, at the hands of the murderous German people and their Allies, all of whom were of one counsel to annihilate, kill, and utterly destroy the Jewish people, to wipe out the memory of Judaism, and to erase any association with the name Israel.

G-d of vengeance, Judge of the Earth, remember the streams of blood that were spilled like water, the blood of fathers and sons, mothers and sucklings, rabbis and their students, and repay the oppressors of your people seventy times over.

Do not silence the scream of "Shema Yisrael!" uttered by those who were taken to their death, and let the groan of the afflicted ascend before the throne of your glory. Avenge, speedily in our days, before our eyes, the blood of your pure and sanctified sons and daughters who were never had the privilege to be buried as Jews… As it is written: "For He will avenge the blood of His servants, and vengeance he will serve on their oppressors, and He will atone the Land of His people."

Amen. Selah.

Prayer for the Departed:El Malei Rachamim
O G-d, full of mercy, who dwells on high,
Grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence
In the lofty levels of the holy and pure,
Who shine like the glow of the firmament -
For the souls of the

Six Million Jews, victims of the European Holocaust

Who were killed, slaughtered, burned and wiped out
For the Sanctification of the Name
By the murderous Germans and their allies,
Because, without making a vow,
All the community will pray
For the uplifting of their souls.

Therefore, may the Master of mercy
Shelter them in the shelter of His wings for eternity;
And may He bind their souls in the Bond of Life.

The Lord is their heritage.
And may their resting-place be in the Garden of Eden,
And may they reach their destiny at the end of days.

And let us say Amen.