Once again, they’re saying never again.
Borough residents joined together at Sheepshead Bay’s Holocaust Memorial Park Sunday to pay tribute to the millions killed by the Nazis as well as re-dedicate themselves to fighting anti-Semitism in all of its forms.
As volunteers lit candles honoring the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, speakers encouraged those in attendance to always be on guard against those who want to harm an entire people because of their culture and religious beliefs.
The shocking incident in Washington D.C. on June 10 when an 88-year-old white supremacist shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. is proof that the hatred that helped drive the Nazi agenda is alive and well in 2009, speakers explained.
“We honor and commemorate [those killed in the Holocaust], but we are remembering the catastrophe that occurred now a good 60 years ago because of the relevance of what it means to us today,” explained Rabbi Yehoshua Zelikovitz of the Manhattan Beach Community Group as he gave the invocation. “In every generation, there are those who stand to destroy the Jewish nation. We are always facing countries, people and individuals who are trying to do what they can to hurt the Jewish people.”
“By remembering, we are learning from history,” he added. “We know that we have to be vigilant.”
“Anti-Semitism and racism is alive today,” said Captain Mark Nussbaum, a Russian-born U.S. soldier who lit one of the six candles stretching out from the base of the memorial to remember his grandfather, who died at Babi Yar along with 34,000 Russian Jews shot by the Nazis during mass executions. “One has to wonder how far we have come as a people.”
Borough President Marty Markowitz, who had just recently returned from touring concentration camps during visits to Amsterdam and Vienna, said that hope is flourishing in areas where thousands of Jews met their deaths.
“In 1938, there were 185,000 Jews living in Vienna,” he explained. “When the Nazis came, many of them emigrated from the country. Many more were killed. After World War II there approximately 1,000 Jews remaining in Vienna, but now the Jewish population is flourishing, standing over 14,000.”
Markowitz said that he was proud to attend the opening of a new floor of the largest yeshiva in Europe. In an ironic twist, the school, located in Austria, is directly opposite a Nazi bunker, he explained.
“That’s the ultimate payback,” he said. “Across the street from an edifice of hate is a flourishing Jewish school.”
Sunday’s celebration commemorated 25 years of Holocaust remembrances at the park on Emmons Avenue near West Street. The Holocaust Memorial was officially dedicated in 1997.
This year’s event included moving songs from the Edward R. Murrow chorus, prayers, and awards handed out to winners of the Lena Cymbrowitz Foundation’s Holocaust essay, poetry and art contest.
The Holocaust Memorial Committee also honored their “two Irenes” — Irene Gut OpDyke and Irena Sendler — who both risked their lives to save Jews falling under Nazi oppression.
