(Courtesy of Congregation B’nai Sholom/Fair Lawn Jewish Center) Congregation B’nai Sholom/Fair Lawn Jewish Center will commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with a full program on Sunday morning, January 26, at 10:30 a.m., at its location: 10-10 Norma Avenue, Fair Lawn. All are invited to attend.
The keynote speaker is Sam Rosmarin, the son of two Holocaust survivors and a member of Generations Forward, a group of second- and third-generation individuals sponsored by the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center of White Plains, New York. His mother, Marin, was 14 when the Nazis invaded Poland and was present when the Nazis took her parents and youngest brother. She was taken by the Nazis when she was 16 and survived seven labor camps in the Auschwitz complex. Marin endured crushing loss, yet lived to 89.
His father, Leo, was 18 when he was taken to a series of slave labor camps where he spent his “college years.” He survived five years in the labor camps and lived into his 80s. He gratefully wrote, in a letter to his first grandchild, asking her and his other grandchildren to never forget. “The Nazis burned the trees but they couldn’t kill the roots.”
Leo and Marin enjoyed 60 years of marriage and the arrival of three children and six grandchildren.
“Our community was built by numerous Holocaust survivors and their descendants,” noted Rabbi Ronald Roth, rabbi emeritus, CBS/FLJC and event chair. “We must recall them and honor their memories. We also cannot forget that the Holocaust was perpetrated by a country that was respected for its science and culture. We learn that such a country can descend to horrific depths and guard against it happening anywhere in the world today.”
“Auschwitz: A Short Film” by James Moll from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation— The Institute for Visual History and Education, will be viewed. Brenda Kaplan and Bonnie Platter will provide music for the event, including the theme from “Schindler’s List” and “Oyfin Pripitchuk.” Students from The Community Hebrew School of Bergen County are scheduled to participate. There will be a shofar blowing, as well as the lighting of memorial candles and a Holocaust Torah procession. The event master of ceremonies will be Holocaust Educator Neil Garfinkle.
To RSVP, please contact [email protected] or call 201-796-5040.
