Salaspins Concentration Camp Memorial - Riga, Latvia (photo: Joey Eisman)

Today, January 27, marks the United Nations’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Around the world, JDC works in communities that were ravaged by the Holocaust. Many of our JDC Jewish Service Corps (JSC) Fellows interact with survivors on a daily basis, and the memories of this terrible time remain strong in the cities where we operate in Europe and the Former Soviet Union.

To commemorate International Holocaust Rememberence Day, we pulled together blog posts from our current JSC Fellows that look at survivors and memorials around the world.

• Yahel, our JSC Fellow in Berlin, participated in Limmud Day in Hamburg, where the Holocaust was “undeniably in the background.”
• Michelle, serving in Kharkov, Ukraine, details her visits with Nazi-victims and her experience at the Holocaust memorial site in Drobitsky Yar.
• Kara, also serving in Kharkov, works at the JDC Hesed in the region, and many of her clients are Nazi-victims. Here’s a look at some of these incredible individuals.
• Joey, serving in Riga, Latvia, visits the former site of the Salaspins concentration camp, which was at one time the largest such camp in the Baltics.
• Heather, serving in Mumbai, India, shares a very frank Holocaust-driven moment with an Indian Jewish colleague.

Applications for the 2012-13 JDC Jewish Service Corps are open until March 15. More at jdc.org/jsc