This year’s annual community-organized Yom HaShoah commemoration has been scheduled for Sunday, May 5, to honor victims of the Holocaust and the 81st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The commemoration will be held at 1:30 p.m. at The Lewis and Shirley White Theatre at the Jewish Community Campus (5801 W. 115th St., Overland Park, KS 66211).
The 2024 community Yom HaShoah service is chaired by Dr. Henry Kanarek, son of Holocaust survivor Dr. Joseph Kanarek (z”l). The Yom HaShoah commemoration is a free event open to the public. Anyone unable to attend in person is invited to watch a livestream event on the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE) YouTube channel (youtube.com/@MCHEKansasCity) beginning at 1:30 p.m. that day.
“Preparing for Yom HaShoah and to honor my father’s memory has been difficult,” Dr. Henry Kanarek said. “My father never spoke of what happened to him in order to spare us the pain of knowing. My siblings and I wanted to spare him the pain of asking him to remember what he went through. Although it can be uncomfortable, we need to educate ourselves, we need to educate others, and we need to never forget what we learn from our past. We can do this by remembering to take a dedicated moment each year on Yom HaShoah, taking a class together at MCHE, using the many research resources on-line with growing databases. Together we must ‘Never Forget.’”
In response to an expected final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto on April 19, 1943, the remaining inhabitants launched their final act of armed resistance. For 27 days, ill-equipped Jewish fighters held out against the Nazis, marking the largest Jewish uprising during the war. By May 16, when the Germans succeeded in suppressing the uprising, at least 7,000 had been killed in the fighting. Approximately 42,000 ghetto inhabitants were then deported, and most were later murdered over two days in November 1943 in an action known as Operation Harvest Festival.
In 1951, the Israeli Knesset established Yom HaShoah as the 27th of the Hebrew month Nissan, commemorating this act of resistance.
Kansas City survivors originated the community’s annual Yom HaShoah memorial service and commissioned a memorial both to remember those they had lost and to celebrate the heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This year marks the 61st anniversary of the dedication of the Memorial to the Six Million at the Jewish Community Campus.
Community organizations involved with this year’s Yom HaShoah commemoration include Congregation Beth Shalom and its Sisterhood; Congregation Beth Israel Abraham and Voliner; Congregation Kol Ami; Hadassah, Greater Kansas City; Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City; Kansas City AIPAC; Kehilath Israel Synagogue; Menorah Heritage Foundation; MCHE; National Council of Jewish Women; Rabbinical Association of Greater Kansas City; The New Reform Temple; and The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah and its Sisterhood.
