The event is open to the CU and broader communities. Everyone is invited to attend, participate in the commemoration,  and read. In order to sign up for a 10-minute reading slot, please click on this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EpKAPDwfVbRYYsDH_ziehgobSQ6iFMuDS8Vs4KxZW2M/edit?gid=0#gid=0. Lists of names of the murdered are available prior to the event upon request.

The reading of names as part of Yom HaShoah is a time-honored practice that began already during the genocide. The U.S. Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust in 1980 (a reading of names is generally included). In Israel, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah in Hebrew) is a national day of commemoration, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized. It begins at sunset on the 27th of the month of Nisan and ends the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom of marking a day. The Knesset (Israeli parliament) established it and, again, name readings are central. “The events of the Holocaust are given meaning,” Rabbi Sharon Sobel once wrote, “only by remembering the individuals who died during that time. We gather as a community, we remember the names of those who died and we affirm their lives by how we choose to lead our lives. So, names, indeed, are very powerful. . . we honor those who came before us and those who perished during the Holocaust by giving our names – and their names meaning through our actions and aspirations and the way we fulfill them.”

CU Boulder has restarted the reading of names of the murdered in 2023. The program is designed to bring on- and off-campus communities together to remember this massive genocidal crime. It also serves the purpose of raising awareness on campus at a time, during which we are facing an ongoing rise in antisemitism and many other forms of hatred. It will assure the broader communities in Colorado of CU's commitment to fight genocide, racism and antisemitism. It is also - in line with CU's global mission - yet again another way to connect the university to the world.