Yom Hashoah / Holocaust Remembrance Day
Schedule
Mon May 06 2024 at 07:30 pm to 09:00 pm
Location
91 Leinster Street, Saint John, NB, Canada, New Brunswick E2L 1J2 | Saint John, NB
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The Holocaust Memorial Day Program will be held in the Shaarei Zedek Synagogue on Monday, May 6th beginning at 7:30 p.m.The programme will feature the personal testimony of Shimon Walt, of Halifax. He was born in Vilna, Lithuania after the war ended. He grew up thinking there were only five people in his family: him and his brother, his parents, and his grandmother, a fortunate few amongst the five per cent of Lithuania’s Jews who survived the Holocaust. When his wife Peggy asked for names of family members who had been killed, he couldn’t reply; what happened to them in Vilna, the “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” was never spoken about after the war.
In the summer of 2023, Shimon reluctantly agreed to return to his birthplace, meeting cousins for the first time, and visiting killing sites in Estonia and Lithuania where his family had been murdered. To pay tribute, he borrowed a cello and played at Ponar. The couple then travelled to Israel to share their experiences with Bela, Shimon’s 95-year-old mother. Their journey will make up part of Peggy’s forthcoming memoir: Mine to Tell: Finding My Jewish Family.
Members of the local Jewish community will light memorial candles, share music and photographs of family members impacted by the Holocaust.
This programme is made possible with financial assistance from The Atlantic Jewish Council.
For further information please contact Katherine at the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum: (506) 633-1833 or [email protected]
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Where is it happening?
91 Leinster Street, Saint John, NB, Canada, New Brunswick E2L 1J2Event Location & Nearby Stays:
