This year, the Bayonne community will continue one of its annual missions, never to let citizens forget what happened during World War II, when 11 million people were killed in the Holocaust.
The city’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Service will be held on Thursday, April 16, at 6 p.m., in the Dorothy E. Harrington City Council Chambers, 630 Avenue C. The public is invited to attend.
Remembrance event co-chair Helene Nagiar said it is important for Bayonne to hold this service each year.
“People should come to the ceremony to honor the memory of those who perished, honor the survivors, and to remember that history repeats itself if you don’t learn about these things,” she said.
With decades going by, and many of the Holocaust survivors passing on, it is important to keep the memory of that tragic time alive.
Nagiar has a strong personal interest in the Holocaust, the annual remembrance, and the program taught at Bayonne High School. She was born in a displaced person camp in Berlin, Germany, at the end of the war.
“People should come to the ceremony to honor the memory of those who perished, honor the survivors, and to remember that history repeats itself if you don’t learn about these things.” – Helene Nagiar
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Nagiar believes teaching current and future generations is of the utmost importance.
“When you meet high school students, they will say, ‘I never knew.’ And all of a sudden now, they say, ‘Now I know,’” Nagiar said. “If you educate one person, then that one person educates other people.”
This year’s ceremony will feature a presentation by Bayonne High School social studies teacher Gene Woods, who last summer visited the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp, and the Majdanek Death Camp. His two-week trip took him to four countries.
He will show a preview of the documentary that he is now working on about his journey.
“I wanted a way to capture everything, my thoughts and my feelings, and bring that back – what I saw – and bring my students a real, authentic experience,” Woods said.
Observance events
The Holocaust Remembrance Service is sponsored by the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Bayonne and the Bayonne Interfaith Clergy.
At the service, prayers and reflections will be offered by Rabbi Jacob Benzaquen of Temple Emanu-El and Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin of Temple Beth Am, and Christian pastors from various denominations.
Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise, Bayonne Freeholder Kenneth Kopacz, Mayor James Davis, City Council President Sharon Nadrowski, and other elected officials will present proclamations and offer brief remarks.
The event will include a candle-lighting ceremony in which Holocaust survivors and others will take part.
The winner of the Holocaust essay contest at Bayonne High School will read from the essay and will receive an award sponsored by the Preminger and Epstein families.
City spokesman Joseph Ryan is the other co-chair of the service.
The event has been held for more than three decades.
Joseph Passantino may be reached at JoePass@hudsonreporter.com.To comment on this story online visit www.hudsonreporter.com.