With a mournful violin playing in the background, Holocaust survivors, their sons, daughters and grandchildren, took turns lighting candles, eight in all.
The candle lighting highlighted Sunday afternoon’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day held by the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples.
The day is to remember the six million Jews killed during World War II. The Holocaust Remembrance Day was the first held since Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s response.
Though the focus of the day was remembering those killed by Nazi Germany, October’s attack lingered in the background. The message was clear, never forget.
“Our strength arrives from the fact that we always remember,” said Rabbi Ammos Chorny, who gave the invocation. “We never forget our history and perhaps never develop a greater innate GPS system to guide us on the path to the future, even when the road seems insurmountable.”
Shelley Lieb, co-facilitator of GenShoah SWFL, explained that six candles represented the six million Jews killed during World War II, the seventh was for the nations that helped save lives and the eighth is to support Israel.
Each lit candle came with a story. Lilly Lesley, who co-lit the first candle is 98 years old. She was a concentration camp survivor who fled to Peru.
Warren Ailfeld lit the second candle for his mother, who died at the Aushwitz camp.
Richard Stein lit the fifth candle for his grandfather, who was on the 1939 Voyage of the Damned, the boat carrying German Jews to safety but was never allowed to disembark in another country. The boat returned to Germany, certain death sentence.
Suzanne Cohn and Wendy Rayman lit the seventh candle. They survived thanks to non-Jewish families who hid them.
Raoul Wallenberg was one of the many non-Jews who put himself in harms way. He is credited with saving 40,000 Hungarian Jews during the final year of the war.
Judit Price was one of them. She introduced Sunday’s guest speaker, Naples’ resident Abe Asil, whose mission has been to honor Wallenberg.
“From July of 1944 to January of 1945 he saved tens of thousands, perhaps 100,000 from the horror of Nazi prosecution and death camps,” Asil said.
Wallenberg disappeared after the Soviet Army took control of Hungary. He was never seen again.
The somber reminders of the past weren’t void of optimism. Rabbi Chorny closed his remarks with a sense of hope.
“It’s my prayer, that we marry the privilege of seeing the day as heralded by the prophets when there will be no more war, no more strife, for it is in our hands to build a new world order."
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