Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on April 8, 2013

By ARON HELLER Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) - Among the crowds marking Israel's annual Holocaust remembrance day at the Yad Vashem memorial Monday was a retired American Air Force colonel from San Francisco who came to honor a family he never knew.

Bertrand Huchberger was too young to remember his parents, who sent him and his older sister from Paris into the French countryside to escape the Nazi roundups during World War II. For three years he was hidden by Christian rescuers, including a prostitute, before he was put into an orphanage and adopted by American Jews when he was 11 and taken to New York.

Now 75, Huchberger took part in a rite that has become a centerpiece of the Israel's annual memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed in the genocide by reading the names of his dead relatives: his parents, Alexander and Elenora Noz, and his brother, Albert, who stayed behind in Paris. All were killed.

"It is still settling in. It was just overwhelming. This place is 'terra sancta' (holy ground) for people who have been associated with the Holocaust," said Huchberger, who has only a single photograph to remember his family. "Now I feel that I find myself and my heritage, and it's just uplifting ... it helps build a spiritual bridge to my parents."

The ceremony, known as "Every Person Has a Name," tries to go beyond the incomprehensible numbers to personalize the stories of individuals, families and communities destroyed during the war. At the Knesset, Israel's parliament, President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials also read names of their relatives murdered in the Holocaust.

In an annual ritual, the country came to a standstill at 10 a.m. Monday to honor the victims when sirens wailed for two-minutes across the country. Pedestrians stood in place, buses stopped on busy streets and cars pulled over on major highways, their drivers standing on the roads with their heads bowed.

In homes and businesses, people stopped what they were doing to pay homage to the victims of the Nazi genocide, in which a third of world Jewry was annihilated.

A wreath laying ceremony at Yad Vashem followed, with Israeli leaders, Holocaust survivors and visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in attendance. Other ceremonies, prayers and musical performances took place in schools, community centers and army bases.

The annual remembrance is 1 of the most solemn on Israel's calendar. Restaurants, cafes and places of entertainment shut down, and radio and TV programming were dedicated almost exclusively to documentaries about the Holocaust, interviews with survivors and somber music. The Israeli flag flew at half-staff.

Read the original post:
Israel honors 6 million victims of Nazi Holocaust - Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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