Remember The Children Police Stand By At Temple Beth Shalom As Children Honor Holocaust’s Littlest Victims

Spokane police stood watch outside Temple Beth Shalom Sunday evening as children lighted candles in a solemn remembrance.

The 15 children made a procession into the sanctuary, each carrying a glowing candle representing 100,000 of the 1.5 million Jewish children who died during the Holocaust.

The children symbolized both hope and remembrance during an emotionally stirring ceremony attended by 800 people. The police were reminders that American Jews can still be the focus of hatred.

No threats were received before the ceremony and no disturbances occurred during it, according to police.

The first of the 15 children to speak, Isaac Weiser paid tribute to Monia Levinski, a 10-year-old Lithuanian boy who was shot to death by the Germans.

Avi Zellman spoke for Tibor Roth, a Romanian child, who was 5-1/2 when he was forced into the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

Jill Gersh spoke for Jacqueline Morganstern, a 13-year-old Jewish girl who was injected with tuberculosis during a medical experiment and hanged in 1945 before the British liberators arrived.

The ceremony, called “Remember the Children,” also focused on the importance of educating future generations about the Holocaust.

“The next generation must know what happened and about the society in which it happened - so they can ensure that it never happens again - not to Jews, not to immigrants, not to African-Americans, Gypsies or any other minority group,” said Dr. Mary Noble, a Spokane physician who organized the observance.

Noble is also the daughter of Holocaust survivors. “I grew up with no grandparents and with knowing my parents’ lives were totally traumatized,” she said before the ceremony last week.

Noble finds the country’s increased acceptance of anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric frightening.

“We need to say as a society that we won’t tolerate this,” she said.

During the observance, called Yom Hashoah in Hebrew, candles were also lighted in honor of Holocaust survivors, their children and grandchildren, the liberators of the death camps, and Jewish members of the Armed Forces.

Dr. Gary Livingston, superintendent of Spokane public schools, lighted a candle honoring educators.

Clergy from Episcopal and Unity churches led a responsive reading called “When We Remember Them.”

Rabbi Jacob Izakson led a reading of the kaddish, the traditional Hebrew mourning prayer. The prayer was interspersed with the names of Nazi concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau.

A choir from Jefferson Elementary School sang a song called “Inscription of Hope.” It was based on writings found on the walls of a cave in Germany where Jews hid during the war.

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining,” the children sang. “I believe in love even when there’s no one there. I believe in God even when He is silent.

“I believe through any trial, there always is a way.”

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