Many Holocaust survivors understood the importance of Holocaust commemoration, and felt a sense of responsibility to commemorate the murdered and ensure that the Nazi atrocities would not be forgotten. Straight after liberation, intellectuals started to collect documentary material related to the Holocaust, and chronicled the events that had occurred. In so doing, they continued the commemorative initiatives carried out during the Holocaust period by underground organizations.
Many survivors started to write their memoirs and to establish monuments in memory of their destroyed communities and murdered families. In the early postwar years, many Jewish commemorative initiatives emerged, and significant events were marked with memorial ceremonies.
On the first anniversary of the liberation, survivors wondered what form the memorial day would take. The date set for the first day of commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust was 14 Adar, and was marked with memorial ceremonies and assemblies.
In time, commemorative activities became more widespread and varied, and hundreds of Yizkor books were published in memory of entire communities that had been wiped out, in addition to survivor memoirs.
Itzhak Pshehodnik was born in Zwierce, Poland in 1924 to Zvi and Ita, the fifth of nine children. The family fled to the village of Pilec when the war broke out, returning three days later. Young Itzhak was conscripted to forced labor paving roads, and also took it upon himself to forage for food for his family. In 1942 he was caught by the Germans and sent to a transit camp in Sosnowiec. From there he was transferred to various labor and concentration camps, including Graditz, Gross-Rosen and Dachau, where he was liberated by US soldiers.
After the war, Itzhak discovered that he was the only one of his immediate family to survive. He joined a Zionist movement and started making his way to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). He met his wife Esther at a hachshara (pioneer training) kibbutz, and together with the kibbutz they boarded the ma'apilim (illegal immigrants) vessel Hatikvah, which departed for Eretz Israel on 8 May 1947. The boat was intercepted by the British, who diverted the passengers to a detention camp in Cyprus. After some two years at the camp, during which time their daughter Adina was born, Itzhak and Esther reached Israel and settled in a camp for new immigrants in Be'er Yaakov.
During his detention in Cyprus, Itzhak made a miniature tombstone in memory of his father, who was murdered at Auschwitz.
![Miniature tombstone that Itzhak Pshehodnik made in a detention camp in Cyprus. The words "Zecher Zvi" (in memory of Zvi) are engraved on the tombstone](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/1_5211.jpg "Miniature tombstone that Itzhak Pshehodnik made in a detention camp in Cyprus. The words "Zecher Zvi" (in memory of Zvi) are engraved on the tombstone")
