Holocaust survivors and war veterans joined Boston community leaders, including Mayor Thomas Menino, yesterday in remembrance of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day.
A Holocaust commemoration service for Yom Hashoah with a theme of ‘Liberation: Crossroads of Hope and Grief’ was held at Faneuil Hall and followed by a memorial service dedicating the Liberators’ Monument. The monument is an addition to the New England Holocaust Museum meant to memorialize American soldiers who liberated the concentration camps.
‘The monument honors the American soldiers who showed compassion and empathy to those they encountered,’ explained Rabbi William Hamilton, chair of the 2003 Jewish Community Relations Council’s Holocaust Commemoration Committee. ‘The theme of liberation expresses the emotions that must have been felt at that time.’
The key speaker of the service was Warren Emerson Priest, a Buchenwald concentration camp liberator and Boston University alumnus. He offered accounts of his and his fellow soldiers’ memories of liberation and of the memories of Holocaust survivors. He explained to the crowd that it is easier to understand the pain of millions when you understand the pain of a few.
‘Remembrance becomes a cruel punishment for the many who suffered and those who fought there. I remember some things and I fail to remember others,’ Priest said. ‘Some things are vivid, like the children’s barracks. Even today I shudder. I feel the back of my neck tighten. Those children’s frightened faces appear again and again in my memory.’
Priest served as a member of the U.S. Army’s 120th Evacuation Hospital as a surgeon during World War II. His unit was one of the first American medical units to encounter concentration camp survivors.
‘Many of the soldiers have never been able to speak or write about their experiences because they were too traumatic,’ Priest said. ‘Their lives have been affected, just like those who fought at Vietnam were affected and I expect like those who have fought in the Gulf Wars will be affected.’
Priest reminded the audience to remember Holocaust survivors and liberators as people with scars, not as statistics.
‘The memorial we dedicate here today will be the result of our hope, our resolve and our love,’ Priest said.
Israel Arbeiter, president of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston and a Holocaust survivor, also thanked the American soldiers for his own survival.
‘I believe if they had not come when they did, none of the survivors here would be alive today,’ Arbeiter said.
After the commemoration service, a silent procession, led by Massachusetts State Police and a group of young people carrying a flag, walked through Faneuil Hall to the Holocaust Museum. Lining the route were members of the youth organization Path of Voices, who read aloud victims’ names and their stories.
Path of Voices is a part of ‘Unto Every Person There Is a Name,’ a worldwide Holocaust Memorial Project meant to personalize the individual tragedy of victims and survivors.
The Liberation Monument was dedicated by Rick Mann, president of Friends of the New England Holocaust Memorial and was unveiled by David Weinstein, a friend of the New England Holocaust Memorial. Leo F. Barry, Staff Sergeant 179th Regiment, accepted it on behalf of the liberators.
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