Volunteers, including students, administrators and members of the Chapel Hill community, will read the names of Holocaust victims in five-minute increments until noon today. The event, co-sponsored by N.C. Hillel and the Carolina Union Activities Board, is the centerpiece of Holocaust Remembrance Week.
UNC-system President Molly Broad was the first speaker to read off victims' names.
"It is important for us to take a few moments and reflect on that horrific experience in our civilization and to remember the 6 million people who were martyred," Broad said.
Nathan Cherry, CUAB Holocaust Remembrance Week co-coordinator, said most student leaders, including Student Body President Jen Daum, volunteered to read. Other notable participants include Chancellor James Moeser, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy and Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange.
Although pictures of the Holocaust tragedy accompany the readers in the Pit, at times during the reading Tuesday most students in the area walked by unaware of the event, and their conversations occasionally drowned out the names being read.
But Cherry said this event is important to ensure that the events of the Holocaust are never forgotten. "The Holocaust speaks a lot to indifference; there was a lot of indifference in Germany," Cherry said. "It is symbolic that during the event people go about their business. It's symbolic because that is what a lot of people tend to do when injustices are occurring."
Cherry said the event is important to ensure that the dangers of the Holocaust are never forgotten.
Organizers said 11 million people died in the Holocaust, 6 million of whom were Jewish -- if one name were read every 4 seconds, it would take more than a year to represent everyone who had died.
Tommy Mann, a junior business major from Charlotte, read late Tuesday afternoon. "It is important to me because a lot of my family died in the Holocaust," he said. "My grandfather and great-uncle were in concentration camps.
