Yom Hashoah at RKYHS was marked with educational and commemorative components.
In their classrooms, RKYHS students learned about children during the Holocaust, children that were hidden and children of survivors. Ninth graders learned about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, 10th graders heard from faculty member Chaye Kohl as a second generation survivor, 11th graders learned about the heroism of Janusz Korczak, who worked as director of an orphanage in Warsaw and ultimately refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when they were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp and 12th graders watched the intense but important and impactful movie “Night and Fog.”
Rabbi Sasha Pecaric, the day’s program organizer opened the school-wide commemorative program in advance of Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court Stuart Rabner’s keynote address. Six students then read poems in a variety of languages and Sgan Rosh HaYeshiva Rabbi Chamudot movingly led students in song on his guitar, accompanied by eleventh grader Lizzy Zucker on keyboard.
On Yom HaShoah, RKYHS students and JKHA eighth graders had the privilege to hear from Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court Stuart Rabner. Justice Rabner is deeply committed to ensuring that future generations are educated about the atrocities of the Holocaust.
The son and son-in-law of Holocaust survivors, Justice Rabner spoke to students about their obligation to commemorate and perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust. He told the story of four separate individuals who were impacted by the Holocaust in different ways and used these stories to illuminate the importance of continuing to hear the stories of survivors and to take ownership of them and keep them alive. By making the Holocaust their memory and not just their history the students can ensure that the Holocaust does not become a historical footnote.
He imparted to the students the power of remembrance, and that never again speaks to more than Yom HaShoah, it means to guard against intolerance and hatred against all communities.
The students concluded the program in the Seryl and Charles Kushner Holocaust Memorial Garden with the recitation of Kel Maleh Rachamim, Kaddish and “Hatikvah.”
