Once again, Temple Shalom held its Holocaust Memorial at St. Timothy’s 1,600 seat Catholic Community Church Tuesday afternoon with a standing-room-only crowd in attendance. Program organizer, Dr. Robert Gold, a retired podiatrist from Memphis, has been involved with Holocaust memorials for over fifty years. This is his sixth year as chairman of the Yom Hashoah Memorial Service in The Villages.
“Shabat Shalom!” Dr. Gold began. “It is Passover! We have suffered in bondage many times in our history — there was the Egyptian period, the Roman exile, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and, worst of all, under the Third Reich and the Holocaust!”
“Last year, we had five U.S. Army concentration camp liberators present — four of whom told their stories. This year, we honor ‘The Righteous Among the Nations.’ We are inspired by the heroic people, mostly Christians, who risked their own and their families’ lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. It says in the Mishnah that whoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe. I am my brother’s keeper was the mantra of the Righteous Among the Nations, as they hid, fed and arranged transportation for Jewish people.”
“Yad Vashem was established in 1953 in Jerusalem as a living memorial to the Jewish people. They have a million visitors a year in this country of eight million, and the Garde of the Righteous honors these Righteous Gentiles whom we have been able to document. In this world of total moral collapse, there was a small minority who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human virtues — they stand in stark contrast to the mainstream of indifference and hostility. Not all the Righteous will be known because some did not survive the war, nor did all the Jews they tried to rescue from death.”
As of 2014, there were 25,271 Righteous. from 44 countries, memorialized at Yad Vashem.” It is an emotionally draining experience as one visits Israel, driving through the endless groves of trees on both sides of the road, each with a bronze plaque honoring a Righteous rescuer. Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe — they have almost 6,500 Righteous listed; next is the Netherlands, with more than 5,300 plaques.
Included are four Americans — including Journalist Varian Fry, a distant relative of Fr. Ed Waters, known as ‘the American Schindler.’ He established the Emergency Rescue Committee in France until he was deported; and the American Relief Center — a front which, with American expatriates, French relief workers and refugees, used black market funds and forged passports to smuggle Jews out of France. During his 13-month mission, more than 1,000 Jewish refugees escaped to safety, including some of Europe’s leading cultural, intellectual and political figures.Upon his return to the U.S., he wrote ‘The Massacre of the Jews: The Story of the Most Appalling Mass Murder in Human History’ for the New Republic magazine.
Two honor guards presented the colors at Tuesday’s ceremony — the Jewish War Veterans and the North Lake Detachment of the Marine Corps. League. According to Dr. Gold, the Jewish War Veterans were the first military organization recognized by the U.S. government — in 1898; and the MCL is the oldest continuous U.S. military service organization — founded in 1775, which would make it 239 years old.
“We planned something different this year,” Dr. Gold said of the lighting of seven ceremonial candles. “Traditionally six candles are lit — representing the six million slaughtered Jews. This year, the seventh candle is to honor all the non-Jews who were also killed, often for assisting Jews to escape Nazi-occupied lands. This may be the first time in history seven candles are being lit in America at a Holocaust service,” Dr. Gold continued, “and perhaps this will become a new tradition.”
Father Ed Waters of St. Timothy’s, said “Pope Francis promotes the preservation of life, honors it and gives thanks for freedom. No religion can condone the raping of women, beheadings and other atrocities — — that cannot be from God or a religious cause. He prays for the preservation of the State of Israel and for the United States of America.”
“Two-thirds of the Jews in Europe were exterminated,” Dr. Gold said. “Before World War II, there were about 57 million Jews in Europe. Today, Jews only represent about ten percent of the European population. It was due to the kindness and bravery of Gentiles that the survivors survived.”
Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, was the keynote speaker. Ms. Stahl holds a degree from Miami University of Ohio and graduate degrees from George Washington University and NYU. She lived in Israel, working for Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross Society.
The JFR was formed to repay a debt of gratitude for the extraordinary efforts of non-Jewish people during World War II — to fulfill the traditional Jewish commitment to Hakarat Hatov — the searching out and recognition of goodness. Their other goal is to preserve the legacy of the rescuers through a national Holocaust education program. Based in New York City, Ms. Stahl gives more than a dozen presentations a year in America and makes five or six trips to Europe to spread the word.
Among the Holocaust survivors present were Miriam Apfel from Socnovitz, Poland who labored at Auschwitz and a local munitions factory. All but 9 of her family of 100 were killed. Belgian Jew, Helene Siegel, was hidden with Christians, moving many times, and grew up thinking she was an orphan. Reunited with her parents after the war, they lived in Argentina and then Israel before coming to America. Only about a dozen of her large family survived.
French-born Remi Wrona, whose parents worked in the French underground, placed him with a Catholic farmer. He was raised as a Catholic until his reunion with his parents, who survived the war. After his 1936 Bar Mitzvah in Nuremberg, Heinz Jaffe’s parents sent him to America. Fortunately, he was united with his parents who survived the war. Ernst Mendel, was the only Jew in his town near Mainz, Germany. He was whipped with his pants down in front of his first grade class for being Jewish. Over 100 members of his father’s family escaped to America;8888 but a similar number of his mother’s relatives stayed, believing the problem would blow over. They all perished.
American-born Susan Sirmai Feinberg ‘s parents were born in Budapest, Hungary, and survived the Holocaust. Her mother received a passport from Raoul Wallenberg after she was taken off a ship bound for Ravensbruk by Wallenberg and the Red Cross. Her father was in a labor camp in Hungary during World War II, and her grandfather, great grandfather and uncle were killed at Auschwitz after the German Occupation, as were many other relatives. Her mother came to the U.S. in i948 and her father in 1951, although they met in Budapest after the war. Luch Laker, daughter of Czech Holocaust survivors escaped to Italy, and then to Ecuador.
Two retired educators from Temple Shalom presented Holocaust essay contest prizes to three students from The Villages Charter School and three middle school children. From The Villages High School, Allen Chan-Pong took first place, Amanda Calkins was second and Gabrielle Soto was third. From South Sumter Middle School, Shayne Mead placed first; Ruby Daughtry was second, and from Wildwood Middle High School, Courtney Brooks’ essay placed third.
It is a goal of Temple Shalom members that young people learn about the Holocaust — so they can see the dark shadows of pending dictatorship,
and evil government. Stanlee Stahl outlined how the Nazis identified all European Jews, then forced them into poverty by removing them from schools, employment and property ownership. They were isolated in ghettos, where it was very difficult for anyone to help them escape, and most were then annihilated.
After he chanted the Kaddish (Jewish prayer for the dead), Sheldon Skurow, spiritual leader of Temple Shalom warned the audience to remain vigilant for signs of evil in government and take action. “Let not our people have died in vain. The world is in chaos. We must look to a power beyond us — he has many names, but he inspires us — The Lord of all peoples is One.”