The lost lives of six million Jews during the Second World War will be commemorated at Ottawa City Hall on Jan. 27 as part of the events marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
“It helps people to understand the importance of commemoration of the atrocities,” says Shlomit Sufa, the deputy head of mission at the Israeli Embassy.
This will be the second time city hall has observed the day, and Fred Litwin, one of the co-ordinators, says he hopes to see more people join the commemoration.
“We always try our best to get as many young people out as possible,” says Litwin. “You have to keep on doing events like this because it’s so easy for people to forget what happened.”
Litwin and a group of co-ordinators have spent more than a year planning the commemoration.
The hour-long ceremony will feature prominent Jewish singers including Ottawa’s 93-year-old Cantor Moshe Kraus, a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Six Holocaust survivors will lead the tribute to the Jews murdered by Nazi Germany. Each survivor will place one flower, to represent one million of the victims, in a vase.
The master of ceremonies, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, says recent international events – including the murder of four Jewish shoppers at a kosher grocery in Paris during this month’s terrorist attacks in France – serve as yet another unfortunate reminder of the power of hatred towards a certain group.
“You have a country like France living in fear because of hate unleashed,” says Bulka. “It doesn’t make a difference who the hate is directed to because the lesson we learned is that it may be directed at one group but once it’s unleashed it doesn’t play favourites.”
The four victims were buried in Jerusalem earlier this month.
“Despite 70 years that have passed, anti-Semitism is on the rise,” says Sufa. “This fight is a global fight and it is to be shared by the international community.”
Bulka says events such as these demonstrate support for Jewish citizens across the world.
“It’s important that it be in a place that galvanizes us together to define who we are whether it’s Parliament or city hall,” he says. “It’s right there in the heart of who we are.”
Mayor Jim Watson and federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau will be speaking at the ceremony. Jason Kenney, the minister of employment and social development and multiculturalism, as well as the ambassadors of Germany, Israel, Poland and Turkey, will join them.
“It’s semi-public so a lot people will see what we are doing,” says Litwin. He adds that last year people who were walking by stopped to join the ceremony.
Bulka says the event will help the next generation to learn from history and, hopefully, not make the same mistake twice.
“It’s not a waste of time,” he says. “You continue to have it at the front and centre of people’s conscience and eventually, hopefully, the message will get through.”
The hour-long event is scheduled to start at noon.