“Although we gather not physically together but only spiritually and emotionally as a community to commemorate Yom HaShoah, we can still remember,” Rabbi Sarah Smiley of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah began the virtual commemoration.
Rabbi Smiley discussed how the Torah teaches us time and time again not just to remember, but to not forget. “Soon secondhand memories will be all that is left. And when the last survivor is unable to share his or her story with us, it becomes our job to share their memories,” she said.
This year the commemoration helped our community remember: 75 years since the end of World War II and the liberation of Holocaust survivors, 77 years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and 57 years since the Memorial to the Six Million was dedicated. As of Tuesday, the virtual commemoration had over 450 views on YouTube.
This year’s Yom HaShoah Chair, Mary Covitz, daughter of Holocaust survivors Rose and Leo Zemelman, both of Blessed Memory, shared her parents’ moving, painful and inspiring story. Covitz shared a remarkable story of finding a photo of her mother, young and smiling with broken teeth during liberation. She found the photo by chance on a trip to the Jewish Museum in Sydney, Australia. Covitz shared a letter translated from Yiddish that her mother had written to family in Kansas City shortly after the Holocaust.
Covitz shared that her father escaped from Auschwitz, but was unfortunately caught. “My father said he always thought he could make it one more day, but he was reaching the end of his rope there,” Covitz said. Her father was liberated after days on a train without food or water, very little light or space “My dad was so weak and sick… and then the train stopped. And the doors were pulled open. He heard the Jeeps before he saw them. And that’s how he was liberated. In the middle of who-knows-where, he was free,” she said.
Her parents met at a party of survivors in Kansas City — her father wanted to know who the woman singing was. They were married three months later. Covitz was born a month before they celebrated their first wedding anniversary. “Because we were kids and second generation, we were the ultimate revenge for Hitler. Because they didn’t want our parents to live and not only did our parents live and prosper, but they had another generation,” Covitz said.
The traditional candle-lighting ceremony was introduced by Ida Kolkin, daughter of Holocaust survivors Fred and Maria Devinki, both of Blessed Memory. “It is my honor to introduce one of the most traditional and meaningful parts of our memorial service, the lighting of six candles representing the six million Jewish victims,” Kolkin said, “The memory of the Holocaust reaches across our community, touching each of us.”
Representatives from six special groups lit candles: survivors, the second and third generations, the youth, veterans and armed forces members and the community. Everyone watching was invited to light their own candle of remembrance.
The first candle was lit by survivor Erwin Stern. The Children’s Aid Society helped Stern escape Austria following Kristallnacht. The organization also arranged for him to come to the United States. He was almost nine when his parents sent him and his younger sister, who was 6, to France. He believes they were part of the Kindertransport. He was 25 when he found out that his father did not perish in the concentration camps as he had believed. A family Stern had lived with in Kansas City read in a Jewish newspaper that Stern’s father was looking for him and his sister. They were thankfully able to reunite.
The second candle representing the second generation was lit by Suzy Lowenstein, daughter of Rose and Leo Zemelman, both of Blessed Memory. The third candle representing the third generation was lit by Jeffery Covitz, grandson of Rose and Leo Zemelman. The fourth candle representing youth was lit by Emma Jacobson, a Together We Remember participant. The fifth candle, representing Jewish veterans and the armed forces, was lit by Jewish war veteran, Mark Slatkin of MO-KAN Post 605. The sixth candle representing community was lit by Michael Abrams of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City.
Since the video was pre-recorded, Rabbi Smiley said that they would not be reciting Mourner’s Kaddish as usual, but shared Psalm 138, which ends, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you quicken me. You stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies. And your right hand saves me. G-d will accomplish that which concerns me. Your mercy oh G-d endures forever. Forsake not the work of your own hand.”
The Jewish Community Relations Bureau|AJC, the Midwest Center of Holocaust Education and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City were organizing agencies of the virtual commemoration. Twenty-six Jewish organizations in the community co-sponsored the event. You can view the commemoration here https://youtu.be/4A6opWUEKoQ.
By Meryl Feld
Editor