Evidence and praise of Jewish resistance to Nazi oppression filled Faneuil Hall yesterday as about 500 people gathered for the 2001 Yom Hashoah Holocaust Memorial Service.
The annual service, entitled, “Resistance During the Holocaust,” featured Dr. Steven Katz, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University, as the keynote speaker.
“Resistance is not just physical resistance,” Katz said. “For Jews, every act that affirmed their humanity is an act of resistance. The fact that Jews did not commit mass suicide is resistance.”
Katz stressed that despite suffering horrific living conditions in World War II concentration camps and ghettos, Jews fought against Nazi cruelty both spiritually and physically. He listed the secret preservation of religious custom, the publication of anti-Nazi literature and several concentration camp riots as examples of Jewish struggle.
“Had they done nothing it would be perfectly understandable, but they resisted,” Katz said.
Each of the ceremony’s five speakers emphasized similar ideas. Several stressed the need to continue public education about Holocaust history to combat emerging rhetoric that denies its existence.
“Holocaust denial has become a veritable industry,” said Rabbi William Hamilton of the Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline. “Holocaust remembrance must become a growth industry.”
“Sixty years have passed since that eclipse in the history of mankind, and we ask ourselves, ‘Have we done enough?’ I think not,” said Itzhak Levanon, Consul General of Israel to New England.
The ceremony began with a candle lighting by six Holocaust survivors and their descendants, followed by a reading of Gov. Jane Swift’s proclamation officially designating April 15-22 as Days of Remembrance in the Commonwealth. Government officials in attendance included Mayor Thomas Menino, Sen. Steven Lynch (D-Suffolk), Rep. Alice Wolf (D-Middlesex) and City Councilor Mike Ross (Back Bay, Fenway).
Ross’s father, Stephan, a survivor of 10 concentration camps, took part in the ceremony by reading one of his own poems, “Reach to God for Mercy,” and by helping Menino lead the crowd during its closing procession to the New England Holocaust Memorial to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish.
The speeches were interspersed with choral selections from Kollot Rambam, the elementary choir of the Brookline Maimonides School and A Besere Velt, the Yiddish Community Chorus of the Workmen’s Circle. Nurit Bar-Josef, assistant concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, performed a violin selection that prompted spontaneous applause from those gathered.
The Holocaust Memorial service was sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and the Friends of the New England Holocaust Memorial. Approximately 100 Holocaust survivors attended.
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