A day of mourning was set for Tuesday in order to commemorate those who lost their lives in the Holocaust over 50 years ago.
Beginning on Monday night at 9 p.m., volunteers read the names Holocaust victims for 24 straight hours.
"We do the name reading because we want to make it individual in order to remember each and every one of them," said College freshman Jenna Statfeld, a member of the planning committee. "They were people just like you and me."
Penn Hillel's Holocaust Education Committee -- the group that organized this event -- had a number of other things planned for the memorial as well.
The group is collecting as many pennies as they can, and they hope to acquire a million in order to show people what that number actually looks like.
Statfeld explained that if people could see a million pennies and try to imagine that 11 times over, they could begin to understand the incredible amount of lives lost in the Holocaust.
The penny collecting will continue until the organization reaches its goal, and then the money will be donated to a Holocaust education program.
Many of the people who read the names of victims -- largely provided by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum -- were actually volunteers from the Penn community who were not even directly affiliated with the Holocaust Education Committee, and they were encouraged to bring the names of family members who had lost their lives in the Holocaust to the reading.
Before the name reading began late Monday night, singer and educator Jerry Silverman gave a presentation on the genre of Holocaust music. Afterwards, a candle-lighting ceremony followed to commemorate everyone who perished in the Holocaust.
"I think it's really important for people to know and remember -- you see people come over, and you know how affected they are by everything," Statfeld said.
The Red Cross was also involved with the program. The organization has helped reunite people who were separated from their families during the Holocaust. Now, with blood tests and information more readily available, the Red Cross said that it is easier to find people today than it was 10 years ago.
