Students from Hillel, a campus organization for Jewish students and faculty, kick-started the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Week with an informational fair in the Brickyard Monday afternoon.

The fair took place from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and, according to students who planned the event, was designed to help students remember the lessons of the Holocaust and to help bring awareness to other examples of genocide going on in the world today.

“The reason we’re doing this is because there are still a lot of problems with people hating each other and persecuting each other,” Ben Mazur, a sophomore in statistics, said. “Every time this happens, we try to learn a lesson from it and we try to educate people about it, but there are still problems like this going on today.”

Mazur, who serves as the treasurer for Hillel, presented the situation in Darfur, a region of Sudan where a conflict between Arab militia members and nonArab residents of the region has transpired since 2003, as an example of modern violence.

A recent estimate from the United Nations said that approximately 180,000 people have died in the last 18 months of the Darfur situation. The information fair included a table that provided students with information about the conflict.

Students from other student groups on campus were also present at the information fair for the same reason as Hillel.

“We are here because we want to represent other groups affected by massacre and genocide, particularly in Bosnia and Kosovo,” Ameir Al-Zoubi, a junior in computer science and president of the Muslim Student Association, said. “We wanted to make it something everyone could relate to.”

The information fair also pointed out that there were many people other than Jews who were victims of genocide during the Holocaust.

Students working at the information fair gave out small triangular pieces of felt to attendees. The different colors of triangles represented the different groups that were targeted during the Holocaust.

Mazur said he asked students to take one of the triangles if they felt a special connection to one of the groups or wanted to show support for that particular group.

The fair provided information to students that stated during the Holocaust — immigrants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Catholics, homosexuals, armed forces members and disabled people were also taken into concentration camps.

Members of Hillel said that telling people about some of the other groups affected by the Holocaust was one of the event’s main goals for the week.

“I’m involved with Holocaust Remembrance Week because, as Jews, we have a responsibility to share that not just Jews were involved in. While the Holocaust was happening people ignored it and didn’t believe that something that bad could happen,” Rachel Greenstein, a junior in sociology and social studies education and president of Hillel, said. “The United States didn’t step in until after Pearl Harbor even though we had evidence that the Holocaust was happening. If we don’t tell people to remember the Holocaust and be aware of other instances of genocide — then no one will.”

Holocaust Remembrance Week will continue today when student volunteers will be recruited to read names of people who were killed during the Holocaust.

The reading of names will take place from 7:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m. in the Brickyard.

Also scheduled for today is a candlelight vigil at 8:00 p.m. on Harris Field.

Mazur said that the vigil will have speakers from different faiths talking about how people can live together and learn from the events of the past.