Survivors Honor Holocaust’s Victims

In a solemn ceremony at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills on Tuesday, nearly 200 mourners gathered to commemorate Yom Ha’ Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Under a tent at the foot of the Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Holocaust survivors and their descendants vowed in speeches, songs and poems never to forget Nazi Germany’s slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II.

“And in the hole, they were thrown, with no headstones engraved.... After all, they were just Jews,” survivor Cipora Nutovits read from her poem, “Diaspora.”

Many survivors have been slowed by age and infirmity, but their inner strength was evident as they vigorously sang the Israeli national anthem, recalled their fears of being forced from their homes as children, and read the names of mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who died in the concentration camps.

Despite the somber occasion, several speakers encouraged Holocaust survivors to share their experiences with younger generations as a way to strengthen their Jewish faith and identity.

Tuesday’s ceremony marked the 16th year that Cafe Europa, a social service and Holocaust survivors advocacy group of Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles, had arranged the event at Mount Sinai, organizers said.

Cafe Europa founder Flo Kinsler established the Holocaust Remembrance Day at the memorial park in 1988 when she realized that several group members had no place to go to honor those who died or survived the concentration camps.

“There are deep social and psychological aspects of the grieving process,” said Kinsler, a semiretired social worker. “Many Holocaust survivors suffer the worse kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that you could ever see. This gives them a safe place to grieve and remember.”

Samuel Bergman, who survived six concentration camps before being liberated by U.S. soldiers in Germany, said that though painful, it was very important for him to attend the ceremony. The 78-year-old Bergman lost 63 members of his family in the Holocaust.

“It wakes up everything that I went through,” he said. “I am heartbroken, but we cannot forget.”