Memories of the Shoah
THE Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) held its annual Yom Hashoah commemoration at Monash Clayton campus’s Robert Blackwood Hall on Sunday night with the theme of “Enduring Legacies”.
THE Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) held its annual Yom Hashoah commemoration at Monash Clayton campus’s Robert Blackwood Hall on Sunday night with the theme of “Enduring Legacies”.
The ceremony began with an emotional address from JCCV president John Searle, who beseeched the community to be vigilant against anti-Semitism and likened the policies of the Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to those pursued by the Nazis against Jewish businesses in pre-war Germany.
Six candles were lit by survivors and their families to commemorate the six million victims of the Nazi atrocities.
The candle-lighting was followed by harrowing intonations of Hazkarah and Kaddish from St Kilda Hebrew Congregation’s Rabbi Phillip Heilbrunn.
Throughout the ceremony, narrator Lena Fiszman used archival photos as visual cues, to tell of a thriving European Jewish community at the vanguard of politics, commerce,education and the arts. She also recounted the devastation of the Nazi murderers and the legacy of those who lived to tell the tale.
Survivor Philip Maisel recalled his time in the Vilna ghetto, in particular his friendship with Hirsh Glick, a Jewish partisan and poet who famously wrote the Partisan Song.
Fellow survivor Genia Tiegel used her address to pay tribute to a non-Jewish nurse who risked her own life to ensure the survival of her interned patients.
ADAM KAMIEN
Image: Sigfreid Siegreich lights a memorial candle. Photo Peter Haskin
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