Thousands of Holocaust Survivors Gather in Ceremony of Remembrance

Thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors gathered last night in a solemn ceremony of remembrance for the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust and to commemorate the heroism of those who fought the Nazis in the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw 42 years ago.

With six banks of candles–each bank containing six steps; each step having six candles–flickering against the black backdrop of the stage where a huge banner declared in English and Hebrew, “We shall never forget our six million Jewish martyrs,” the need for remembrance was stressed throughout the evening.

While Governor Mario Cuomo, Mayor Edward Koch and others referred obliguely to the recent furor surrounding President Reagan’s planned visit to a German military cemetery–where some 30 Waffen SS soldiers are buried–Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University, issued a stirring appeal for Jewish education as the true means of memorializing those slaughtered by the Nazis.

In his keynote address to the thousands inside the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden and the hundreds who listened to the evening’s events outside through a loudspeaker system, Lamm observed that one response to the Holocaust was the founding of the State of Israel. Another, he said, has been “a holy, compulsive drive to record and testify. We do not want the world to forget and we do not want to forget.”

EFFORTS OF REMEMBERING, REMINDING MUST CONTINUE

“The efforts of remembering and reminding must continue,” Lamm said. He said that as long as revisionist historians and as long as the monuments to the dead at Babi Yar and Buchenwald make almost no reference to the Jews who perished there, “there will be a need for Jews to remember and remind.”

Lamm said that beyond the memorials, museums, biographies and accounts by survivors of the Holocaust, a major role must be devoted to Jewish education and continuity to ensure that what Hitler attempted to do will not be achieved by other means–intermarriage and assimilation.

Lamm and other speakers did not appear to have toned down their criticism of the President for his planned visit to the Bitburg cemetery despite the announcement in Washington that he would make a trip to a concentration camp. “A courtesy call at a conveniently located concentration camp cannot compensate for the callous and obscene scandal of honoring dead Nazis,” Lamm declared.

Cuomo did not refer specifically to the President’s planned Bitburg cemetery visit, although he warned against those who deny the existence of the Holocaust and whose “true purpose” is anti-Semitism. Moreover, he warned about those who attempted to forget the Holocaust.

“The truth is, even those who are free of anti-Semitism–even those who are almost certainly sincere in their revulsion at the Holocaust–are tempted to forget, to declare this ugly chapter of human history closed, done with, over,” Cuomo said.

Naphtali Lavie, Consul General of Israel in New York, said, “Jews all over the world will struggle never to forget, but the sovereign Jewish nation will always remember…We must remember that the smoke of Auschwitz and Treblinka will evaporate without a trace, if we allow ourselves to forget. And if, God forbid, Auschwitz and Treblinka are forgotten, there will be no meaning left in our existence as a civilized society.”

Benjamin Meed, president of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization, told the survivors that “our time is growing short. We are getting older. We need each other more than ever before….For the sake of the future of mankind, let us not allow history to repeat itself. Let us remember together and remain together.”

Mayor Koch, who proclaimed April 17 Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration Day, assailed the President’s decision to go to Bitburg, saying he “wanted to forget what happened. He was speaking for a lot of people,” the Mayor said referring to Reagan, “who want to forget what they did, what they allowed to happen.”

the commemorative event had previously been held at Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue, a Reform synagogue that held a capacity crowd of 2,500 persons compared to the 6,000 seats in the Felt Forum. Meed said the move was made to accomodate Orthodox Jews who were uncomfortable attending a service in a Reform synagogue, as well as to accomodate a larger number of people.

The ceremonies last night included the lighting of the banks of candles by women who survived Nazi concentration camps, the singing of the Ani Ma’amin (I Believe) and the recitation of the Kaddish, and the lighting of candles by children from the Kinneret Day School, a yeshiva in Manhattan. The commemoration was co-sponsored by the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.