"The place where we are standing is a place of memory, it is the place of the Shoah. The past is never simply the past. It always has something to say to us; it tells us the paths to take and the paths not to take..."

(Pope Benedict XVI at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 28 May 2006)

A young singer from Temple Beth Am sings Ani Ma Amin: "I believe in perfect faith in the Messiah's coming. And even if he be delayed, I will await him."


Father Ryan offers a greeting at the beginning of the service.


Six memorial candles, representing the six million Jews who died, are lit by survivors of the Holocaust.  Each survivor is accompanied by a Christian.


After the lighting of each candle, prayers are offered "in memory of helpless infants, children, and teenagers who were cut down like young trees before their time during the Holocaust; in memory of all mothers who died with their children in their arms; in memory of all mothers and fathers who were cruelly separated from their families; in memory of all scholars, teachers, and rabbis who were the first to be seized; in memory of the “Heroes of the Resistance” who fought the Nazis—so few against so many; in memory of the martyrs who gave their lives to help their brothers under the Nazis.  We shall not forget!"


Testimonies from those who suffered in concentration camps were read by young people.  Here, Jake Bobman reads a poem written by a child in Terezin Concentration Camp: " For seven weeks I’ve lived in here, Penned up inside this ghetto. But I have found what I love here. The dandelions call to me And the white chestnut branches in the court. Only I never saw another butterfly. That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto."


Zachary Freedel of Temple de Hirsch Sinai sounds the shofar.  "The sound of the shofar urges us to awaken from our complicity.  It is a call for the community to repent and to follow God's teachings."


Rabbi Daniel Weiner, Senior Rabbi, Temple de Hirsch Sinai, offers the mourner's prayer, the Kaddish.


The service concluded with the lighting of candles "to remember, to enlighten, to inspire."