At the Yom Hashoah V’Hagvurah event at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, the community was reminded of the importance of passing on the memory of the Holocaust to future generations, but also included messages of strength, perseverance and pride.
The May 4 event, organized by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) and the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre of UJA Federation, attracted about 1,000 people who heard from World War II veteran and Holocaust survivor Martin Maxwell, March of the Living alum and Petah Tikvah Anshe Castilla Congregation president Isaac Osiel, Consul General of Israel to Toronto and Western Canada DJ Schneeweiss, and FSWC president and CEO Avi Benlolo.
The program also included a Jewish War Veterans march on the colours, a candlelighting ceremony by Holocaust survivors and their families that included video testimony from each survivor, a performance by the Bialik Day School Choir, as well as a dramatic production called Reflections of Anne Frank, commissioned by FSWC.
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Maxwell, 92, said that with the number of living survivors and war veterans declining each year, it’s time to pass the torch to the next generation.
“On behalf of the Holocaust survivors and the few World War II veterans who are still with us, but especially on behalf of those who fought to give us the tomorrows, I want to hand over the torch of memory and freedom to the younger generation. Hold the torch high, so others can see how precious freedom is and if you’re ever called on to defend it, give it all you have, because once it is lost, it is almost impossible to get it back. But we request something from you – to make this a better world, a world of tolerance and understanding,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell ended with a message for those who “stand with us… and even those who wish us harm… Am Yisrael Chai. The people of Israel live and will live.”
Osiel spoke about the obligation that rests on the next generation of Jews to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.
He said many Jews know the story of Pesach – the fact that about 3,300 years ago, the Jews were liberated from slavery in Egypt – down to the minute details.
“But what if I asked you about the Christian Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Ukrainian Cossacks, the Russian pogroms? If I came up to you, could you tell me even one story of one of these major Jewish tragic events? How will the Jewish people of the year 2116 relate to the Holocaust? Will they know one story?” Osiel challenged.
He said making a commitment to teach our children about the Holocaust is something we owe to the millions of souls who couldn’t speak out for themselves and the survivors who have done their part to share their trauma to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.
“May their memories last forever,” Osiel said.
Benlolo said that although the Jewish people continue to face enemies around the world, Jews are “ready to defend themselves at all costs.
“Standing together tonight as a community to remember and draw strength from each other, this is vindication. We cannot let our guard down. The echoes of the past are here again. They try to boycott us, they try to dehumanize us, they disguise their anti-Semitism against us, but they will never, ever win. They will never again take away our freedom, our dignity, our humanity, and our rightful place in this world.”
DJ Schneeweiss spoke about the human spirit of the survivors that allowed them to go on and flourish in the decades after the Holocaust.
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“The human spirit is what makes it possible for individuals to change history. It is what allowed our people to build a sovereign state that carries the Jewish people forward and will forever serve to ensure and guarantee that there will never again be another Holocaust.”
He said despite the security that the State of Israel affords the Jews, there are still a number of threats facing the Jewish people.
“From the poisonous ideas and morally depraved excesses of radical Islam, through willful Holocaust denial… to the casual ease with which anti-Semitic ideas and agendas are allowed to fester and grow at political extremes on the left and right, we do indeed face real dangers. Holocaust education is a crucial component of the collective effort to address these challenges,” Schneeweiss said.
“We will never allow those who hate us to change us, define us, to limit us, or prevent us from aspiring and realizing our own personal communal and national potential… Let us also pledge… that our story going forward is not of victimhood, but one of ongoing achievement and contribution to the world at large.”