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Holocaust Remembrance Day pays tribute to 6 million Jews who died
RELATED: 5th-grade class learns somber lesson
By LINDA M. LINONIS
YOUNGSTOWN
Yom Hashoah revolves around Holocaust remembrance and promotes education.
About 150 people attended Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Youngstown Area Jewish Federation in the rotunda of Mahoning County Courthouse.
Rabbi Joseph Schonberger said Holocaust Remembrance Day should be a “day of transformation for humanity.” “It reminds us not to be indifferent to challenges evil puts before us,” he said.
The rabbi leads Congregation El Emeth in Liberty and is co-chairman of the Holocaust Commemoration and Education Task Force with Rochelle Miller. Both are children of Holocaust survivors. He welcomed the gathering.
Rabbi Schonberger said it is up to succeeding generations to honor survivors by remembering what happened. “So many survivors and liberators are no longer with us,” he said. “We miss them in our hearts and souls. It is up to us to make a difference.”
To provide education about the Holocaust, the JCRC announced that Jesse McClain was named Holocaust educational specialist. In the newly created position, McClain will speak to area schools and provide in-service programs for teachers so they can present the material in their classrooms. The service will be provided at no cost to schools.
McClain, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher, will retire this year with more than 35 years of experience as an educator and administrator in Boardman school district.
Rabbi Franklin Muller of Congregation Rodef Sholom said the 6 million who died were targeted because they were Jewish. “Our hearts are filled with sorrow of bitter remembrance,” he said during the invocation.
A ceremony in which six candles were lighted paid tribute to the 6 million Jews who died. Children of Holocaust survivors, Susan Blecher, Sam Kooperman, Rochelle Miller, Rabbis Muller and Schonberger, and Mike Rawl, a grandchild of a survivor, each lighted a candle.
Poems and essays by students who participated in the writing contest sponsored by the council evoked sad and horrific images of inhumanity during the reign of terror of Nazi Germany.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps, set the theme: “1945: Stories of Liberation.”
Suzyn Schwebel Epstein, president of the Ohio Council on Holocaust Genocide Education, recognized students who were winners and honorable mentions in the writing contest. She explained the council has trained some 1,000 educators in Ohio on how to teach the information on genocide, war crimes and human-rights violations.
Students in eighth through 12th grades in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties and the Shenango Valley in Pennsylvania were invited to submit original essays and poems.
Atty. Martin Hume, law director in the city, presented the mayor’s proclamation on the day. Rabbi Saul Oresky of Congregation Ohev Tzedek-Shaarei Torah gave the benediction.