Holocaust Memorial Day on April 7

This is from the Lehigh Valley Jewish Federation: – There are two important ways that people who did not live through the Holocaust try to grasp it. They hear the numbers, like the six million Jews that perished. They remember the photographs, powerful black and white imagery ingrained in our collective minds.

On Sunday, April 7, at 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center of Allentown, the Lehigh Valley Jewish community will commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day with a program that asks us to look beyond those numbers and pictures.

Featured speaker Dr. Rachel Korazim was born in Israel and served in the IDF as an officer in the central training base for women. She is a graduate of Haifa University with a doctorate in Jewish education. As an educator and daughter of Holocaust survivors, she focuses on the influence of the Holocaust and how it shapes our thoughts and actions.

This year's ceremony will also feature a special commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on this, the 70th anniversary.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 planned act of Jewish resistance within the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, opposing Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining Ghetto population to the Treblinka extermination camp. The most significant portion of the rebellion took place from April 19, and ended when the poorly armed resistance was crushed by the Nazis, who officially finished their operation to liquidate the Ghetto on May 16. It was the largest single revolt by the Jews during World War II.

A memorial reading of names – including those who perished in the Warsaw Ghetto – will begin at 6 p.m.

The program is sponsored by the Holocaust Resource Center of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley. Visit www.jewishlehighvalley.org/yomhashoah.aspx to learn more.