On April 24, the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center and Westchester Jewish Council hosted their annual Holocaust Commemoration at White Plains’ Garden of Remembrance. The program began with Mitchell Ostrove sounding the shofar.
Holocaust survivor Arlette Baker shared her family’s story. “Listening to me might be a few minutes in your life. To me, the memory of the Shoah is part of my being, every day of my life. I didn’t go to the extermination camp, but my life has been shattered. I haven’t been tattooed on my forearms, but my life has been shattered. I haven’t been physically tortured, but my life has been shattered.”
Baker was born in France to an assimilated French-Jewish family. Her parents were born in Paris and met on a tennis court. Her father was CEO of a company producing eyeglass frames. Baker recalled December 28,1942: “My parents had a big party at home with all the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. I remember as if it was yesterday, my mother played the piano. There was singing and gifts. I received a beautiful new doll and a puppet theater. Everybody was laughing and happy. This was the last day of happiness.”
On December 30, “Maria the maid opened the door. Two young French policemen said, because you’re Jewish, you have five minutes to prepare suitcases. My mother was crying. I was crying, knowing something terrible was happening. My father spoke to the two young men, explaining that his father is married to a Roman-Catholic woman, ‘Please let Maria, our maid, bring Arlette to them and I will also give you money.’ I must have looked like his little sister or his little daughter. That saved my life. We left the apartment. The two men pushed my parents, and we separated.”
Her parents were taken to the Drancy concentration camp in suburban Paris. They corresponded with her grandparents. Their last card on February 13, 1943 said they were leaving for a work camp, “better to be working than doing nothing. Then we’ll come back. Father, take good care of our Arlette. Arlette, be a good girl.” Baker noted that her parents were in Convoy 48 to Auschwitz. “Paris was liberated in 1945. Survivors were returning to Paris. Every day, my grandfather checked to see if my parents were returning. We kept hope for several years. We didn’t know my parents had been gassed. For a long time, I was in denial. I thought my parents would reappear. It’s difficult to accept the death of someone you love when there is no proof. I waited and I waited for their return.”
Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins spoke. “This day is sacred, a time to set aside each year to remember 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. It’s also a time to reflect on the Jewish resistance, honor the survivors and recommit ourselves to ensuring such hatred, cruelty and silence never take hold again. Around the world, and right here in Westchester, we observe it with heavy hearts, open minds and a deep sense of responsibility.”
Jenkins continued, “We must say no to every form of antisemitism, and condemn any form of hatred or violence. Westchester County chooses not just words but actions. When the world feels unsteady, when division rises, we must be the ones to hold the line on truth. We are guided by hope, keepers of memory, protectors of dignity. We promise stories of the Holocaust will not fade. The courage of those who resisted, who hid, who survived, will not be forgotten. The cries of those that were silenced will continue to be heard across time, because we choose to listen. Never again.”
Congressman George Latimer said, “The urgency to act, to deal with hatred in all of its forms is that important, because we are this close to going back into the darkness. We have to be able to not only see the evil when it manifests itself in concentration camps, but in the days that lead up to concentration camps, where we start to diminish equality of our brothers and sisters. These are difficult discussions to have in the present day. It is almost easier to deal with the horrors of the Holocaust because we are distanced by a certain number of years. We’re distanced only in the exceptions when the Holocaust survivors reminded us that this really happened on the streets of Paris. The most important responsibility we have is to let our actions be moved by the fact that we never forget.”
