Interfaith Community to Observe Holocaust Memorial Day

On Sunday, April 15, Westmoreland County residents will remember the victims of Nazism by observing Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Memorial Day. —Interfaith Community to Observe Holocaust Memorial Day (National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education)

I just got back from taking my nine-year-old son to this service, which was very moving.

The service began in the Congregation Emanu-El Israel synagogue, with a moving service that had people in the congregation reading names of victims, resistance fighters, and martyrs (rescuers) of all walks of life.

Next door in a social hall at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, filmmaker Debbie Brukman showed her documentary, “Perla: The Last of the Seven Dwarfs,” a fascinating story of a family of Romanian Jewish family of seven siblings, each no taller than 90 cm, who were deported to Auschwitz. They and their family members were kept alive due to the special interest of the infamous Mengele. The last of the seven siblings died in 2001, and the film is built around an interview with her.

I was surprised that this film doesn’t seem to have a web presence anywhere, but this article in the Bonita Daily News has good information about the film.