Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Yom Hashoah Holocaust Remembrance Day is April 18

By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

History happens on two levels in Fayette County this Sunday:

First, the history that every new generation should learn about the Holocaust: the systematic murder of millions of people — most of them Jews — primarily on the basis of race during Hitler’s Third Reich.

And secondly, in a local history-making event, Jews and Christians will join in formal observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Although Yom HaShoah was added to the Hebrew calendar by the Jews themselves in 1950, a unanimous vote of Congress during the Carter administration “hereby establishes the United States Holocaust Memorial Council,” and charged it with creating an appropriate national Holocaust Remembrance Day (Public Law 96-388).

After much debate, the Jews chose the 27th day of Nissan on the Hebrew Calendar. This year, that date falls on April 18 on the western calendar.

This event has been planned by a committee from Congregation B’nai Israel, Fayetteville, and Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in Peachtree City. Sandy DeMuth, president of B’nai Israel, and Carter Askren, vicar at Christ Our Shepherd, have led a group of about a dozen people from both congregations since January.

The term “Holocaust” has been used to describe wholesale murder, especially of ethnic groups, for many decades. In recent years, however, it has been applied more specifically to the destruction of the Jewish population.

The following explanation is taken from the FAQ at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.:

“The Holocaust is the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims Ð 6 million were murdered, [1 million of them children]; Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), people with mental and physical disabilities, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi Germany.” New information, slowly being released from long hidden former-Soviet sources, may increase these numbers beyond belief.

Why “bring up” such painful memories? “We prepare for the future by remembering the mistakes and tragedies of the past so we do not repeat them,” said DeMuth.

Margaret Obrecht, director of the Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust of the USHMM, will be an honored guest and speaker for the Yom HaShoah observance Sunday. She will speak at 9:45 a.m. at Christ Our Shepherd on “The Holocaust in a Christian Nation.”

At 4 p.m., a cast of children from both congregations will portray lives of children in the Terezin, Poland, concentration camp in the play “I Never Saw Another Butterfly.” Kathy Baker, lead drama teacher for Clayton County schools, directs. A reception in the church’s Fellowship Hall will follow.

A community-wide Service of Remembrance will begin at 6 p.m. Among those participating will be the Rev. Ron Warren, bishop of the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, cantorial soloist Susan Levine, CBI president DeMuth, Obrecht, and the pastors of Christ Our Shepherd, the Rev. John Weber and the Rev. Miriam Weber.

In addition, Sylvia Wygoda (chair emeritus and executive director of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust) will attend, as will vice-chair Stephen Lefco.

The service will include short readings, the lighting of 11 candles, and music coordinated by the church’s minister of music, David Beecher.

“By working with our Jewish friends to host this service,” Askren commented, “we demonstrate our commitment to practice what we preach, and to build bridges of hope with our neighbors. There is no hidden agenda, no purpose other than to worship God together as best we are able, to remember the lives of those lost to Nazi violence, and to pray for the future that such an unspeakable tragedy never be repeated in human history.”

All events will take place at the Lutheran church at 101 Peachtree Parkway North. For further information, Askren may be reached at 770-487-8717.

The community is welcome to participate in this local expression of a national remembrance.Seating may be limited.

Some sites of interest: www.bnai-israel.net, www.coslutheran.org, www.ushmm.org.