Holocaust survivor speaks at Temple Beth El to mark 80 years since liberation of Auschwitz

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Holocaust survivor speaks at event to mark 80 years since liberation of Auschwitz

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. – This week marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the camp in southern Poland where Nazi forces murdered around 1.1 million people, mostly Jewish, during World War II. 

To remember the lives lost in the Holocaust and to speak out against antisemitism and hateful ideology, educators gathered at Temple Beth El.

“I think in these times that we need to make sure that facts and reality and truth are out there, for the public,” Art Goldstein said.

Art Goldstein, Nick D’Amuro, and Tara Devay with the Holocaust Education Network were among the educators at the event.

“It’s important on days like this to really center yourself and take a minute to think about what has happened. And quite frankly, what could happen again and has happened again in other places when people do not speak up and stand up and put themselves out there for other people,” Devay said.

To teach those lessons, they bring in Holocaust survivors like Carl Wetzstein, who survived the Nazi occupation in Holland by living with a Christian family who hid him as a child.

“I think the important aspect is to know that not just those people, the righteous Gentiles, stood up. They could have simply cut their noses clean, nice, and ignored what was going on, and they risked their lives to help save Jews,” Carl Wetzstein said.

And educator Nick D’Amuro says it’s important to make sure teachers know of stories like Wetzstein’s.

“We’re losing these people. And so one thing that we try to do with the network is bring people like that in our own services to educators that go into that work. And then tonight, it means a lot for us to hear that, because it just grounds us in why we want to keep this work going, and we want to sustain it past just one moment of professional development for a teacher,” Nick D’Amuro said.

In all, the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews across Europe as part of Adolf Hilter’s hateful ideology. The United Nations designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that day in 1945, Soviet troops liberated 7,000 people from the death camp.

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