Thursday’s events include a conversation with two local Holocaust survivors and a film screening, a Ceremony of Remembrance, Reading of the Names, and Remembrance and Resistance - Theatrical Readings and a Discussion.
Two local Holocaust survivors will share a short film about their experience during World War II and tell their story of survival to the Elon community on Thursday, April 12.
Cousins and Greensboro residents Shelly Weiner and Raya Kizhnerman will share their powerful story at Whitley Auditorium at 6 p.m. in a program entitled “Memories of Early Childhood Under the Nazi Regime.”
The evening’s program will include an introduction by Andrea A. Sinn, assistant professor of history and director of the Jewish Studies Program, a film screening of “Return to Rivne: A Holocaust Story” and a conversation and Q&A session moderated by Betsy Polk, director of Jewish life at Elon.
Holocaust Remembrance Day, also called Yom HaShoah, was originally established by the Israeli government in 1953 as a day for the citizens of Israel to remember those murdered during the Holocaust, it has become a day commemorated by Jewish communities and individuals worldwide and the Elon community is invited to participate in one or all of Thursday’s events.
The day will begin with a Ceremony of Remembrance at the Numen Lumen Pavilion Sacred Space from 9:50 to 10:20 a.m. The ceremony, organized by Boaz Avraham-Katz, adjunct instructor in world languages and cultures, will commemorate the lives of those who died as a result of the racial purity measures in German-controlled Europe during World War II and will remind the public of the terrible deeds that can be carried out when bigotry, hatred and indifference are regarded as normal.
The next event is the Reading of the Names, which will be on the steps of the Mosely Center from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The Reading of the Names is an important way to memorialize the victims of the Shoah, and occurs throughout the world on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Elon will join this tradition to emphasize the depth of loss by reading the names of Holocaust victims each accompanied by a year and location one after another.
The name of the ceremony derives from the poem, “Unto Every Person There is a Name, Bestowed on him by his Father and Mother,” written by Zelda (1914 – 1984). It was first held in Israel in 1989.
The final daytime event is Remembrance and Resistance – Theatrical Readings and a Discussion, which will take place in the McBride Gathering Space from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Organized by Kim Shively, assistant professor of performing arts, and student Sara Wasserman, it features simultaneous staged readings as part of the National Jewish Theater Foundation’s Holocaust Theater International Initiative. Elon joins other colleges and community organizations across the United States to commemorate the Holocaust in this powerful manner.
The day’s events are organized by Elon Hillel and Jewish Studies, and sponsored by the Department of History and Geography, the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society.