The Daffodil Project Origins
The Annual Daffodil Day Commemorates the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
DAFFODILS COMMEMORATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING
The final uprising of the heroic Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto began at 4 am, on April 19, 1943. Although the 750 young, hungry, untrained, but dauntless Jewish fighters knew that they couldn’t beat the Germans, they were determined not to die without a fight.
Of the 400,000+ Jews who had once inhabited the 1.3 square mile ghetto, only 50,000 now remained. Those who survived the Uprising were executed or deported to death camps. Fifty fighters, under the leadership of their commander, Marek Edelman had managed to escape.
Every year, on the anniversary of the Uprising, Mr. Edelman would place a bouquet of Daffodils at a site in what had been the ghetto. The 6-pointed, yellow Daffodils—so evocative of the yellow Stars of David that had marked Jews for death—became symbols of the rebirth and resilience of the Jewish people.
Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews established the “Daffodils” campaign to honor the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on its 70th anniversary in 2013. Each year, hundreds of thousands people throughout Poland, Europe, and the US wear paper Daffodils designed by Warsaw artist, Helena Czernak.
In March and April 2017, I made presentations about the Warsaw Ghetto to Clark County teachers at the Sperling-Kronberg-Mack Holocaust Resource Center and Leavitt Middle School. I also distributed hundreds of paper Daffodil pins that had been provided to me by Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
On April 19, I was privileged to speak at a commemoration organized and conducted by the Las Vegas’ Sperling-Kronberg-Mack Holocaust Resource Center, at Temple Beth Sholom’s Warsaw Ghetto Remembrance Garden.
Our featured special guest speaker was Holocaust survivor, Henry Kronberg, co-founder of the Holocaust Resource Center, as well as the Remembrance Garden. Mr. Kronberg was instrumental in bringing the cobblestones and bricks that were salvaged from the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto to Temple Beth Sholom, for the construction of the Remembrance Garden.
I welcome the opportunity to make presentations about the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to more schools and organizations in time for the April 19, 2018, Commemoration. Please contact me for booking information.
