Today was Yom Hashoah, the day when we commemorate the 6 million Jews who were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
I attended the excellent commemoration at West Park cemetery today. At the ceremony we were all given the book ‘60 days for 6 million’.
The book is the product of an inspiring project aimed at remembering those that perished in Nazi Europe. The book contains 60 essays by renowned Rabbi’s, historians, scholars and educators. Each book comes with a card containing the name and details of someone who perished in the Holocaust. The idea is to read one essay per day for 60 days in memory of the victim’s name that you received.
Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein comments
“60 days for 6 Million involves each participant in the act of learning Torah in the merit of a particular victim of the Holocaust, thereby acknowledging the precious individuals who were murdered.”
I will be learning in order to remember that there once lived a person named Sara Ahl. Sara was born in Lwow, Poland in 1880 to Shmuel and Charna. She was a housewife and married to David. Prior to WWII she lived in Lwow, Poland. During the war was in Lwow, Poland. Sara perished in 1942 in Belzec at the age of 62. This information is based on a Page of Testimony (displayed to the left) submitted by her daughter.
The ceremony concluded with the singing of the Holocaust hymn “the Partisan Song”. News of the Warsaw ghetto uprising of April 1943 inspired the Vilna poet and underground fighter Hirsh Glik to write the Partisan song. Glick was killed in 1944 at age 22 fighting in the partisan resistance. This song has become the hymn of the Holocaust and is sung all over the world when the Holocaust is commemorated.
An English translation of the Partisan Song is below
| Come what may, you mustn’t say this is the end. Even though you walk alone without a friend. For the day that we all dreamed about is near, When we’ll shout to the world “We still are here.” From the land of sunshine to the land of snow, And the morning sun will banish all our woe, For we wrote this song with blood and not with lead, That’s why they’ll never make us say this is the end, |
There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel. Suffice it to note the annual flood of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; or the anti-Israel culture that has taken such fast route in universties across the world ; the anti-Israel demonology of the world's media or the divestment campaigns being waged against Israel; or the attempts to delegitimize Israel's very existence.
If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and her people against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.
As with the holocaust, the same kind of Jew-haters will again attempt to appease Arab rage with Jewish blood and land. We must stand up against it. Jews are still dying for only one reason; being a Jew.
Just as the Nazis could not have carried out the Shaoh without having poisoned the minds of the people of Germany and much of the rest of Europe against the Jews, anti-Israel propaganda is undertaken with the aim of paving the way for the genocide of the Jews of Israel,
As the Nazis used KAPOS and the Judenrat to help carry out the Shoah , so many of the key anti-Israel propagandists today are born Jewish. The fact of their Jewish birth should not excuse their contribution to the vile propaganda against the Israeli people.
Recently I re-watched Schindler's List on video - one of the images that stands out in my mind from that movie is that of as beautiful Jewish girl child, of about four years of age, in a bright red jacket, which is the only colour plate in the black and white movie. Schindler observes this angelic child making her way through the crowds of Jews who are being herded out the ghetto by the Nazis. We see the little girl hiding under a bed, terrified, and that is the last time we see her, before we see later in the movie, her mangled little body, being wheeled to the crematorium on a trolley, identified by her red jacket.
The story of the little girl in red made me think of another child. A beautiful and vivacious child, who was murdered 60 years later by Arafatian terrorists at Adura in Judea, as she hid terrified under her parent's bed-Danielle Shefi.
In recent years Thousands of Israeli Jewish men, women and children have died from bombs, bullets or knife attacks, and thousands of others have been maimed, blinded, orphaned, widowed and terrorized.
G-D bless the lovely souls of the angels - the little girl in red who died at Auschwitz, and of Danielle Shefi, who died at Adura. . G-D bless the souls of all Jewish children murdered by the enemies of the Jews and of Israel.
Posted by: Gary | April 16, 2007 at 10:40
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3388353,00.html
Canadian PM: Honor Shoah victims by fighting fanaticism
In speech marking Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Day, Stephen Harper says 'it’s not good enough for politicians to say they remember what happened over six decades ago. They must stand up to those who advocate the destruction of Israel and its people today'
Ynetnews
Published:
04.16.07, 07:31 / Israel News
"The only real way to honor the memory of those who were consumed by the Holocaust is to ensure it never happens again,” said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the annual Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa on Sunday. Holocaust Remembrance Day has been observed in Canada since 2004.
“Let us plainly state the awful, incontrovertible truth that brings us here today: millions, including six million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust,” said Harper.
Yad Vashem
Vatican agrees to attend Holocaust memorial service / Lilach Shoval and AP
Vatican’s Ambassador to Israel Monsignor Antonio Franco will attend Holocaust memorial service at Yad Vashem, reversing earlier decision to boycott event due to caption at museum describing wartime conduct of Pope Pius XII; ‘it was only diplomacy,’ he says of affair
Full story
“It’s not good enough for politicians to stand before you and say they remember and mourn what happened over six decades ago. They must stand up to those who advocate the destruction of Israel and its people today. And they must be unequivocal in their condemnation of anti-Semitic despots, terrorists and fanatics," he said.
Sunday's ceremony was organized by the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem. The commemoration concluded with a march to the Ottawa Congress Centre.
Harper announced some four months ago on the Canadian CTV news channel that his country would not deal with Hamas and Hizbullah since Canada deems them as genocidal organizations.
"We will not solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem, as difficult as that is, through organizations that advocate violence and advocate wiping Israel off the face of the Earth," Harper told CTV.
"It's unfortunate because with Hamas, and with Hezbollah in Lebanon, it has made it very difficult to have dialogue - and dialogue is ultimately necessary to have peace in the long term - but we are not going to sit down with people whose objectives are ultimately genocidal," he said.
Posted by: Gary | April 16, 2007 at 17:43
I really want to praise the SAJBD and the Holocaust Survivor’s Association for a truly moving commemoration. I found it incredibly moving.
We were all discussing here what an appropriate reaction to those Jews of ‘conscience’ who penned there names to that declaration the MG a few weeks ago. For me Yom Hashoah this year was it. We as a community, young and old, religious, right wing and left wing, reform and orthodox showed the entire country that we as a community are united in our determination to ensure Jewish survival. Rabbi Fogal perhaps put it best when he said that his father’s legacy was the pursuit of social justice for all and the defense of Jewish independence in the land of Israel.
Posted by: Mike | April 17, 2007 at 23:25