Every Person
Has a Name
A 25-Hour Holocaust Remembrance Program
January 23–24, 2027 • Pasadena City Hall
2027 Event Information
A number too large to comprehend. A name we can remember.
We often speak of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust as a single number. Every Person Has a Name asks us to remember something more personal: six million individual people lived behind that number.
For 25 continuous hours, members of our community read their names aloud. Whenever known, a name is accompanied by pieces of a life — a birthplace, a date of birth, a hometown, an age. Holocaust survivors and descendants may also read the names of members of their own families.
Each name belonged to a person. Each person had a family, a home, a story and a life.
There is something different saying a name than just reading it. The sound gives it life.
Reflection from a volunteer name reader
Year after year, our community returns.
Every Person Has a Name has become a shared act of remembrance for people throughout our community — many of whom return to the microphone year after year.
of remembrance through the night and into the following evening
participated in a single recent year
were spoken aloud during the 2025 program
as readers take their place at the microphone
These numbers tell us the scale of the program. The names remind us why it exists.
The reading does not stop when the city grows quiet.
The first names are read after the opening commemoration ceremony. Then the reading continues — through the evening, through the middle of the night, into the morning and throughout the following day.
Some people come to read. Others come simply to listen. Families participate together. Survivors and descendants remember relatives. Students, clergy, community leaders and neighbors stand at the same microphone.
Readers are given the names and information they will read. There is nothing to memorize and no performance to prepare. The act itself is simple: stand, speak a name and allow that person to be heard again.
Hours of Remembrance
Thousands of names can be spoken over the course of 25 hours. And still, they represent only a fraction of the six million Jewish lives taken during the Holocaust.
The responsibility of remembrance passes from one generation to the next.
As the number of living Holocaust survivors grows smaller, the responsibility to preserve their stories becomes ours.
Every Person Has a Name brings generations together in one shared act: remembering people not only for how they died, but for the fact that they lived.
“I felt as though each time I read a name I brought that person to life for just a few seconds.”
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27 marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945 and is observed around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Every Person Has a Name is our community's observance of this day — an opportunity to remember the victims of the Holocaust, honor survivors and ensure that their stories continue to be carried forward.
A name spoken aloud becomes more than a name on a page.
“The reading felt as if we were giving power to the powerless and names to the nameless. The process felt transformative.”
Heather Ross • Volunteer Name Reader
Every Person Has a Name 2027
Our community will gather again at Pasadena City Hall for 25 hours of remembrance. Attend the commemoration ceremony, spend time listening to the reading, participate as a reader or join us online.
Saturday
January 23
7 p.m.
January 23–24
Saturday, 8 p.m. through
Sunday, 8 p.m.
Pasadena City Hall
100 N. Garfield Avenue, Pasadena
and live on YouTube
Say a Name.
Remember a Life.
For a few moments, a name is no longer one among millions. It is spoken. It is heard. And a person is remembered.
January 23–24, 2027 • Pasadena City Hall 2027 Event Information