SAR Academy marked Yom HaShoah on Thursday with a meaningful program Thursday, April 8, beginning with a tekes for students, faculty and staff in grades two through eight as well as the larger community, via Zoom.

Students, faculty and staff had the honor of hearing from survivors and children of survivors as poems were read, songs were sung and personal accounts were shared. Yom HaShoah candles from the organization “Our 6 Million” were delivered to each pod. Each candle was dedicated to an individual Holocaust victim and lit by a student or teacher as they remembered those who lost their lives in the Shoah.

Throughout the day, names of SAR family members or other loved ones who perished in the Shoah were recited as everyone stood in silence honoring their memories. Various grades heard from survivors or their family members including speakers Lou Bravmann, Dina Rosenberg, Sam Marder, George Blank, Ruth Mermelstein, Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg and Rabbi Simcha Krauss. Students shared thoughts and written works including the following poem by middle school student Nava Pollak:

Day of Silence

By Nava Pollak, seventh grade

If it’s a day of silence, why do we speak?

If it’s a day of redemption, why do we cry?

If it’s a day of death, why do we live?

It’s a day of silence because we don’t speak enough.

One day of silence, it will be silent

because the stories won’t have anyone else to tell them.

All of us must remember the stories

Even if we can’t

It’s a day of redemption

Because we were saved

from what would have made us cry

So we cry again

So we could be redeemed again

It’s a day of death

Because so many died

But we live today

Because one day long ago we couldn’t

So now is our chance

To live, to speak, to cry