Shedding ‘Light’ on the Holocaust

Molly Shore

On the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the Temple

Beth Emet Players will recreate a radio broadcast of the battle for

this year’s Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust.

The radio drama, “The Eternal Light,” originally broadcast in

1961, dramatized the 1943 uprising.

“We feel it’s important for people to remember what happened

during the Holocaust so that something like this can never happen

again,” organizer Sylvia Sutton said.

Members of 13 churches and two Jewish temples will participate in

Tuesday’s commemoration at St. Jude’s Episcopal Church.

At the City Council meeting that night, Mayor David Laurell will

issue a proclamation recognizing it as Holocaust Memorial Day.

In remembrance of the 6 million Jewish men, women and children

who perished during the Holocaust, six Holocaust survivors will each

light a candle in the council chamber and again at the church, Sutton

said.

Survivor Susanne Goldsmith was 7 and her brother Peter was 9 when

their parents smuggled them out of Vienna, Austria, through the

Kindertransport program, which moved 10,000 children to safety in

England. Goldsmith and her brother left shortly after Krystallnacht,

a night when Jewish synagogues in Austria and Germany were burned and

windows of Jewish establishments were smashed.

“All the men in our family were arrested during Krystallnacht,”

Goldsmith said. “When my father was released a couple of weeks later,

the decision was made to send my brother and me to England.”

Two years later, her parents escaped from Austria and were

reunited with the children, but other members of Goldsmith’s family,

including her grandparents, an aunt and cousins, died in the

concentration camps, she said.

A seventh candle, memorializing all people throughout history who

have been persecuted, will be lighted by George Saikali, former

executive director of the Burbank Family YMCA.

“It’s to remember all victims of violence ... who fell for no

reason except for who they were and where the came from and their

religious affiliation,” Saikali said.