The Yom HaShoah commemoration at RKYHS had a particular focus on bearing witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust as well as remembering the lives of all those lost. As students walked in to the morning program, they received a name and biography of someone who perished in the Holocaust. They were tasked with deciding on an action that will help commemorate that person’s life and all the potential that was lost. Students also viewed a moving interview of a survivor telling her story of survival. The students concluded the program in the Seryl and Charles Kushner Holocaust Memorial Garden with a musical ani maamin.

Later in the day, JKHA/RKYHS grandparent and great-grandparent Gladys Halpern shared her inspiring story of being hidden by a righteous gentile, and her personal account of some of the extraordinary circumstances and challenges that she had to endure in order to survive.