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The term ha-Shoah Ve-ha-gevourah (Holocaust and Heroism) refers to the cruel epoch when the Nazis and their helpers tried to destroy the Jewish people; and to the Jewish fighters in their resistance and uprising. The Nazis attempted to destroy the Jewish race in every European country which came into their power: Germany, Austria, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, White Russia, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. More than six million Jews were murdered in these countries. During the Holocaust thousands of Jewish communities in Europe were destroyed as were their cultural institutions, their charitable organizations, their synagogues, and their manifold educational centers. A unique culture which had developed over more than a millennium was brought to an end.
Although closed into ghettoes and locked into concentration camps, and without arms and equipment, there were thousands of Jews who dared to rise up against their slaughterers. The inhabitants of the ghettoes of Warsaw, Czestochowa, Vilna, Cracow, Bendyn, and Bialystok rose up in revolt against the Nazi bandits. With the few arms they had succeeded in gathering they defended the ghettoes, isolated from the outside world, against the armies of the Nazis and their helpers. Even in the extermination camps, in the shadow of the gas chambers and the crematoria, they rose up. Tens of thousands managed to disappear into the forests and to join the partisans fighting against the Germans. Many organized themselves into Jewish fighting units, others joined the underground fighters in the occupied countries and united with them against the common enemy. For more information on the ghetto uprisings see the Holocaust Souvenir Sheet and Ghetto Uprising.
The Jewish nation in Israel and abroad will never forget either the Holocaust or the heroism of those who fell in defense of Israel's honor. The tabs of these stamps read: "Hear, O Israel..." (Deuteronomy 6:4) and "These I remember" (Psalms 42:5). The 27th day of Nissan has been established by the law of the Knesset (Israel Parliament) as Martyrs' and Heroes' Memorial Day. On this day the nation remembers the victims of the Holocaust and the heroes who sacrificed their lives in sanctifying the name of Israel. For more on the Holocaust see Holocaust Memorial.
