Toronto (April 20, 2020) – Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) is marking Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – by distributing care packages to local Holocaust survivors.

“For the first time since the Holocaust, we have been unable as a community to prepare for a public memorial. Last year, we held a meaningful prayer-infused memorial for the victims of the Holocaust. This year, all memorials have gone online due to COVID-19, and this to a large measure has isolated many survivors and their extended families. By providing them with a small care package, we wanted to express our love and admiration for them and to tell them that they are not alone,” said FSWC President and CEO Avi Benlolo.

Watch video message from Avi Benlolo on Yom HaShoah:

FSWC is also providing Holocaust education resources to educators and students, including referring them to its Holocaust remembrance website www.neverforgetme.ca and providing online educational workshops. A recent study about Holocaust education conducted by Nanos Research on behalf of FSWC revealed that a majority of Canadians agree that young people are not taught enough about the Holocaust in school and two-thirds of Canadians agree that young people today are less aware of the Holocaust and its lessons than in the past.

Today and tomorrow, FSWC is also encouraging all Canadians to pause in remembrance of the millions who perished in the Holocaust and honour their memory by posting signs with "I remember" on social media.

FSWC is a leading nonprofit human rights foundation directly representing over 30,000 families and educating over 50,000 Canadians a year. FSWC has won the Canadian Race Relations Award for Best Practices and invests over $3 million yearly in programs countering racism and antisemitism and to promoting the principles of tolerance, social justice and Canadian democratic values through advocacy and educational programs, including Holocaust education and diversity workshops, Freedom Day, Speakers Idol, Compassion to Action, Spirit of Hope Benefit, Tools for Tolerance and its widely acclaimed Tour for Humanity.

Standing Up Globally: FSWC is affiliated with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization with 400,000 members headquartered in Los Angeles that has won two Academy Awards, Museums of Tolerance and is an NGO at the United Nations, UNESCO, OAS, OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament. The organization also has offices in Paris, New York, Miami, Buenos Aires and Jerusalem. Visit us at www.fswc.ca.

Media Contact:‍

Avital Borisovsky
Associate Director, Communications
aborisovsky@fswc.ca
416-864-9735 ext. 29