Capitol ceremony recalls the Holocaust
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- Huddle, Catharine
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Leo Fettman (left), president of the Society of Survivors of the Holocaust, lights a candle Monday during a commemoration at the Nebraska State Capitol. Following Fettman are Henry Wald, a Holocaust survivor and camp liberator; and Rabbi Ken White of the South Street Temple. Cantor Harold Firestone (right center) of Temple Israel, Omaha, sings, while Gov. Bob Kerrey and Nebraska Supreme Court Justice Norman Krivosha observe the lighting of the candles.
Capitol ceremony recalls the Holocaust
Some of the darkest days in the history of humankind were commemorated Monday in a somber ceremony at the State Capitol, as Nebraskans joined the nation in observing the annual Days of Remembrance of the millions who perished in the Nazi death camps.
"Millions upon millions of innocent men, women and children perished in the most brutal of all nightmares," said death camp survivor Sam Fried of Omaha. It is well we should remember and memorialize, but man must confront the Holocaust. We cannot turn our backs and go forward. This tragic event occurred only 40 years ago. In 40 more years, it is likely there won't be any survivors. Those of you who survived will never forget.
"It is not for the sake of the dead. It is too late for the dead. It is not even for us. It may be too late for us as well. We witness for mankind," Fried said. "It is those who never know who must be educated and told over and over again. It is mankind's responsibility to remember."
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council accepted a state proclamation offered by Gov. Bob Kerrey, who said humankind must continue to guard against the seeds of tyranny that exist in human hearts.
The Rev. Elizabeth Beams of Omaha, executive director of United Methodist Ministries, told participants the Jewish community does not stand alone in its memorial.
"To forget our sins may be even greater than to commit them," Beams said, referring to her feelings after a recent trip to Israel. "I was tired. I wanted to put off remembering but I knew if I should forget and I should die, then Hitler and the Nazis of Germany would have won."
Rabbi Isaac Nadoff of Beth Israel Synagogue in Omaha said there are no satisfactory answers to such questions as how a nation as progressive and culturally advanced as Germany could carry out acts of barbarism or how those acts could be greeted with silence and apathy by the rest of the world.
"There is only the sad awareness that the hate and the tyranny and the destruction remain to this day a human pursuit," Nadoff said. "God did not fail at Auschwitz. Man failed at Auschwitz."