Yom Hashoah

More than 400 people nearly filled the auditorium at the War Memorial Building downtown yesterday to remember the extermination of 6 million Jews a half-century ago and to honor a Baltimorean who led a national effort to ensure that no one ever forgets.The occasion was Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance that has become an annual event worldwide.The guest of honor was Harvey M. "Bud" Meyerhoff, the Baltimore developer and philanthropist who for six years oversaw the planning and building of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that opened in Washington last April.

Service on children of Holocaust set The Jewish Federation of Howard County, the Howard County Board of Rabbis and Howard County synagogues will sponsor a Yom HaShoah (Holocaust commemoration) service at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Beth Shalom Congregation, 8070 Harriet Tubman Lane, Columbia. Emma Mogilensky, who was separated from her family as a child and was sent to England on the Kinder Transport to escape the Nazis, will speak. Children will read excerpts of writings by children who experienced the Holocaust, and members of the community who survived as children will light a menorah symbolizing the 6 million Jews who died.

The unknown heroes of conscience who helped many European Jews stay a step ahead of the Nazi death machine were recalled in an observance of Yom Hashoah, the annual international remembrance of Holocaust victims.These "righteous Gentiles" or "Christian rescuers" numbered anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000. Whatever their number, they were too few, particularly counted against the 6 million people exterminated in Hitler's concentration camps during World War II.Yet, they did what they could, providing shelter, false papers, food and clothes to help keep Jews and other innocents from the Nazi concentration camps.

Felix Kestenberg carries an unmistakable sadness behind his light brown eyes. "A lot of times I wonder why I was selected to live and 6 million died," said Kestenberg, a Holocaust survivor, in a slight Polish accent. Kestenberg's three older siblings and his father perished at the hands of Nazis during World War II. As a man in his 20s, he was shuttled among seven death camps over five years, barely escaping with his life. Now a Baltimore resident, Kestenberg joined other Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall yesterday for the annual Yom Hashoah Holocaust remembrance ceremony.

Felix Kestenberg carries an unmistakable sadness behind his light brown eyes. "A lot of times I wonder why I was selected to live and 6 million died," said Kestenberg, a Holocaust survivor, in a slight Polish accent. Kestenberg's three older siblings and his father perished at the hands of Nazis during World War II. As a man in his 20s, he was shuttled among seven death camps over five years, barely escaping with his life. Now a Baltimore resident, Kestenberg joined other Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall yesterday for the annual Yom Hashoah Holocaust remembrance ceremony.

At a Yom HaShoah memorial service Sunday, the Howard County Jewish community and others remembered the Holocaust and its 6 million victims in song, prayer and stories. Beth Shalom Congregation of Columbia was host to the standing-room-only crowd of about 275. Details of the Holocaust are still surfacing, more than 50 years after the world learned of the extent of the Nazis' persecution of Jews. People around the globe memorialize the victims each spring with services on Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day. This is a young remembrance, first suggested in Israel shortly after the end of World War II. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, proclaimed in 1951 that the 27th of the Hebrew-calendar month of Nisan be set aside to remember the Warsaw, Poland, ghetto uprising and the Holocaust.

Ceremonies to mark Yom Hashoah begin tomorrow at 2 p.m.Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, will be observed in ceremonies beginning at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the War Memorial Building, Lexington and Gay streets, in Baltimore.The event, sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council, is open to the community.The Joint Distribution Committee will be honored for aiding Holocaust survivors. After World War II, the JDC supported hundreds of thousands of survivors in Germany, Austria and Italy.

A concert tomorrow at the Vatican, held on the eve of the annual Holocaust Memorial Day, has been underwritten in part by James Robinson, the Dundalk native who runs an independent film production company out of Baltimore.The Archdiocese of Baltimore yesterday disclosed Mr. Robinson's contribution to the concert, which will feature works by Jewish composers. Mr. Robinson could not be reached for comment last night, and there were no details available on how much he contributed.Mr. Robinson's company, Morgan Creek, is known for films such as "Enemies: A Love Story" and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."

There is no cemetery where Morris Rosen can go to pay tribute to his parents. Rosen, born in Poland, survived five Nazi concentration camps, but his parents, brother and four sisters perished in them. Rosen, a resident of Baltimore, joined about 400 other people Sunday evening for a "Holocaust Day of Remembrance" service at Columbia's Beth Shalom Congregation, where Rosen's son, Jacob Rosen, is a member. With no burial site to honor his family, the service was a time for the elder Rosen to remember his loved ones and other Jews who suffered and died in the Holocaust.

Everything in Adele "Deli" Strummer's Baltimore County home illustrates its owner's love of life. Flowering plants spill blossoms from the planters and curtains drawn back from windows invite the sunlight to brighten every room.Mrs. Strummer said she embraces life partly because it is simply in her nature.But mainly she's enthusiastic about life because it was taken from her once -- when she was a prisoner in Adolf Hitler's concentration camps during World War II."I got my life back when I was liberated," said Mrs. Strummer, 71. "So many times I almost lost it in that hell, that time when that terrible contamination had spread through Europe."

As six candles burned nearby, Flory Jagoda and her apprentice, Susan Feltman-Gaeta, strummed Spanish rhythms on their guitars. Despite the stirring melody, their anguish mounted as the lyrics grew more poignant. But the song did not speak of lost love or failed dreams. Written in the Judeo-Spanish language called Ladino in 1945 by Holocaust survivors, "They Took Us From Our Homes" recounts their horrific train ride to Auschwitz and children crying in the gas chambers. A half-century later, Jagoda - an international Ladino musician from Alexandria, Va., who sings about the Holocaust, - was asked to set the poem to music.

With the haunting lilt of a single clarinet echoing off the marble walls, the guests of honor shuffled down the center aisle of Baltimore's War Memorial Building yesterday. Some leaned heavily on canes. Others relied on children and grandchildren for support. All wore white roses pinned to their blouses and blazers - a symbol to the audience of more than 500 people that these 50 men and women had endured and survived the Nazi death camps. "Despite the warm sunshine outside, there is a cold shadow on our hearts," Rabbi Steven Schwartz of the Beth El Congregation told those gathered for the annual Yom Ha'Shoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance.

There is no cemetery where Morris Rosen can go to pay tribute to his parents. Rosen, born in Poland, survived five Nazi concentration camps, but his parents, brother and four sisters perished in them. Rosen, a resident of Baltimore, joined about 400 other people Sunday evening for a "Holocaust Day of Remembrance" service at Columbia's Beth Shalom Congregation, where Rosen's son, Jacob Rosen, is a member. With no burial site to honor his family, the service was a time for the elder Rosen to remember his loved ones and other Jews who suffered and died in the Holocaust.

At a Yom HaShoah memorial service Sunday, the Howard County Jewish community and others remembered the Holocaust and its 6 million victims in song, prayer and stories. Beth Shalom Congregation of Columbia was host to the standing-room-only crowd of about 275. Details of the Holocaust are still surfacing, more than 50 years after the world learned of the extent of the Nazis' persecution of Jews. People around the globe memorialize the victims each spring with services on Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day. This is a young remembrance, first suggested in Israel shortly after the end of World War II. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, proclaimed in 1951 that the 27th of the Hebrew-calendar month of Nisan be set aside to remember the Warsaw, Poland, ghetto uprising and the Holocaust.

This is the story of a doughty English professor who left Amherst, Mass., one April morning with a most improbable mission: to persuade recalcitrant Germans and fractious Jews to build a Holocaust memorial at the epicenter of Berlin, a stone's throw from Hitler's underground bunker, and to concur on its design. It took more than 30 cross-Atlantic flights and hundreds of hours of bilious debate, but James E. Young wrung approval for the monument from the Bundestag, ending more than a decade of political wrangling.

Ceremonies to mark Yom Hashoah begin tomorrow at 2 p.m.Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, will be observed in ceremonies beginning at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the War Memorial Building, Lexington and Gay streets, in Baltimore.The event, sponsored by the Baltimore Jewish Council, is open to the community.The Joint Distribution Committee will be honored for aiding Holocaust survivors. After World War II, the JDC supported hundreds of thousands of survivors in Germany, Austria and Italy.

In the comfort and safety of her Wilde Lake home, where three black-and-white photographs of her childhood in The rTC Netherlands adorn the entrance walls, Emmy Kolodny reveals the essence of her past: "I almost didn't make it."As a 4-year-old girl, she was with her "aunt" in Amsterdam one day when she saw an elderly Jewish couple wearing six-point Star of David pins. She blurted: "My mommy and daddy also wear a yellow star."Nazi collaborators heard her remark, and her aunt -- who was actually a nanny -- moved quickly to take Emmy to a secret location.

Remembering the Holocaust The annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) service, presented by the Jewish Federation of Howard County and the Howard County Board of Rabbis, will be at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Columbia Jewish Congregation, the Meeting House, 5885 Robert Oliver Place, Columbia. Chic Paper, a veteran of World War II and a liberator of the concentration camp at Dachau, will speak. An interactive program with Holocaust survivors for teens in grades seven to 12 will be held from 6:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Called Dor L'Dor (Generation to Generation)