All across the country, the stories we hear are heartbreakingly similar. In Chicago, a Holocaust survivor and her husband struggled to afford groceries when their modest state cash benefit was abruptly cut off for months without explanation. Food assistance arrived “just at the moment it was most needed,” she said, easing the anxiety rooted in memories of hunger she endured as a child in ghettos and concentration camps. In Miami, an 88-year-old survivor remembers fleeing on foot at age four, forced into cattle cars and sent to Siberia. Today, living alone, those childhood memories of hunger and fear have resurfaced as he struggles to care for himself. The help he receives, he says, allows him “to survive,” even as it reminds him of the trauma of his youth. In New York, a survivor led an independent life until a sudden medical emergency changed everything. For the first time since childhood, she worried about basic expenses and had to ask for help. Food assistance, she said, gave her “a feeling of comfort and safety” in the final year of her life. In Hartford, Russian-speaking survivors recall “extreme hunger in the concentration camps.” Today, access to food pantries allows them to stock their freezers “just in case,” offering reassurance against memories of long lines and scraps of food. These are not isolated stories. 31,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive in the United States. Shockingly, more than one-third live in poverty, struggling to meet basic needs such as food, medicine, and rent. This past fall, those struggles intensified when SNAP benefits lapsed during the government shutdown. For survivors who were deliberately starved under Nazi rule, food insecurity is not merely financial hardship — it is a reopened psychological wound. Today, Jan. 27, the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau 81 years ago. Candles will be lit, names will be read, and familiar words recited: never again, never forget. These rituals matter. But when remembrance ends at symbolism, it risks becoming hollow. We have a profound responsibility not only to remember Holocaust survivors, but to care for them while they are still with us. They are living witnesses — reminders that a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. Their bodies carry the scars of starvation, forced labor, and trauma. During just one day of the SNAP benefits lapse, KAVOD Survivors of the Holocaust Emergency Fund (SHEF) received $30,000 in requests for food assistance alone. Months later, nearly half of all requests remain for food. Survivors who endured ghettos, camps, and years in hiding as children are now forced to choose between groceries and medical care in the final years of their lives. That reality should stop us cold. Since its founding in 2019, KAVOD SHEF has fulfilled more than 156,000 emergency requests for groceries, rent, utilities, medical equipment, and home care. Demand has increased every year. Today, hundreds of requests arrive daily through Jewish agencies operating in more than 40 communities. Addressing survivor poverty requires coordinated philanthropy, sustained public investment, and policies that protect the most vulnerable. Honoring survivors does not end with speeches or museum exhibits. It continues with grocery deliveries, home care visits, and rent assistance. This Remembrance Day was created not only to honor the dead, but to safeguard the living — and to confront the consequences of indifference. “Never again” was never meant to apply only to mass extermination. It was also meant to prevent the slow erosion of dignity that occurs when societies look away from suffering they find inconvenient. Today, we mourn those we lost. But we must also ask: What does remembrance demand of us now? In 1975, Elie Wiesel called the global community to account in “A Plea for the Survivors.” He wrote, “They told themselves that if by some miracle they survived, people would go out of their way to give them back their taste for life… to make amends, to clear their conscience… treat them as important visitors, guests of honor.” Instead, he continued, “The disappointment came almost at once… People welcomed them with tears and sobs, then turned away.” More than 50 years later, his words still challenge our conscience. If we allow Holocaust survivors to spend their final years in poverty and fear, remembrance becomes performance rather than principle. The true measure of our commitment to Holocaust memory is not how eloquently we speak about the past, but how urgently we act in the present. Kaplan is the executive director of Seed the Dream Foundation. Israel Pregulman is the co-founder and executive director of KAVOD. ...read more read less