Interracial ceremony underscores Newark’s Holocaust observance

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

They came together across racial, religious, and generational lines, gathering first at an African Methodist Episcopal church before moving to the Conservative synagogue next door to remember the Nazi Holocaust. Together they decried genocidal atrocities in Darfur and urged the world to turn against the bigotry and violence that allows such massive killing to happen.

Led by Mayor Sharpe James, clergy, survivors, and schoolchildren assembled on May 18 at Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church for the city of Newark’s 18th annual Holocaust observance, mixing poetry and prayer with speeches about past and present instances of wholesale death.

“As we mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, we take pride in our nation’s achievements in destroying Hitler’s tyrannical rule,” the mayor told the audience in a nearly filled sanctuary. “But sadly, we also see in today’s world that his record of genocide and murder is being repeated, in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan. This observance will tell our young people that only through determined effort can such horrors never happen again.

“Recalling the events of the Holocaust and how we apply its lessons to the struggles of today enable the present and future generations to harness the timeless values of faith and love to defeat racism and violence, and stand up for justice and equality,” James said.

Holocaust survivor Clara Kramer, who lost her family during World War II, told the gathering she survived thanks to the bravery of a Polish family who protected her Jewish identity.

Kramer, a resident of Elizabeth, spends much of her time speaking — particularly with young people — on the necessity of keeping bitter memories alive and fighting the intolerance that underlies genocide.

Her recollections dovetailed with those of Richard Tisch of Chatham, who served as an artillery sergeant in the U.S. Army’s Rainbow Division and helped liberate the concentration camp at Dachau in April of 1945.

Underscoring the memorial program’s theme, Never Again... But It Happened Again, Dr. Jerry Ehrlich of Cherry Hill spoke of the range of deaths he had witnessed in the Sudanese region of Darfur and the refugee camps in neighboring Chad, where he worked as a volunteer for the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders.

Illustrating his talk with gripping images he recorded on color slides — many taken surreptitiously — the pediatrician spoke of the death by torture, by malnutrition, and by diseases ranging from measles to HIV-AIDS inflicted on the African Muslims in the Darfur region of the Sudan by its government forces and a murderous militia.

In an emotional presentation in which the writings of young concentration-camp prisoners were read by children more than 60 years later, 18 students from Newark’s Oliver Street School took turns at the podium.

The fifth and sixth graders — Latinos, Portuguese and African American — delivered 11 poems written by some of the 15,000 children at Terezin, a camp in Czechoslovakia.

As they read, their young, sad voices expressed a stark solidarity with the young poets who were destined to be exterminated.

“I am a Jew,” said Kevin Oliveira, “and I am proud to be a Jew,” Leonor Dias echoed in the strong, determined language of a young Nazi victim named Franta Bass. “I shall always be oppressed. I shall always live again.”

As they finished the poems, the students dropped colored paper butterflies at the foot of the podium, recognizing the fragile beauty that inspired a poem by a young man named Pavel Friedman, who was imprisoned in Terezin and died in Auschwitz.

“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,” he wrote in words read in English by Morgan Dixon and Marlon Davila, then translated into Spanish by Angela Fernandez. “That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don’t live in here in the ghetto.”

Let There Be Peace on Earth, sang Synthia James, before Rabbi David Saltzman of Congregation Beth Torah in Florham Park rose to chant Kaddish in the memory of genocide victims.

Then James took the rabbi’s place at the podium to sing We Shall Overcome, as the audience filed next door for lunch at Ahavas Sholom, Newark’s last surviving synagogue.

Robert Wiener can be reached at rwiener@njjewishnews.com.