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Courtesy Xochitl Mora,

Ceremony combines spiritual, secular aspects to help memorialize those killed;

keynote speaker survived Holocaust

 Laredo, TX—After the horrors of the Holocaust, the world vowed to never let such a thing happen again.  To that end, the City of Laredo, the Laredo Public Library Wall of Tolerance Center & Museum, the Laredo Convention & Visitors Bureau and Congregation Agudas Achim will host the Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony on Monday, May 12, 2014, starting with a reception sponsored by IBC at 6:00 p.m.; the ceremony will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Laredo Public Library HEB Multi-Purpose Room, 1120 East Calton Road. This year, the featured speaker will be Holocaust survivor Chaja Verveer, a resident of Houston.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is when Jewish congregations around the world remember the six million Jews who were slaughtered during the Holocaust.  This year’s Days of Remembrance theme is “Confronting the Holocaust: American Responses.” This ceremony is listed as an official Holocaust Day of Remembrance Ceremony with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). 

The reception, sponsored by IBC, is open to the community, and is in honor of their commitment to being a part of a ceremony that to this day still should strike a chord with people of all faiths, ethnicities and background. 

 The program that follows is open to persons of every faith and will feature a mix of celebration and somber remembrance.  In fact, participants in the program include students from St. Peter’s Memorial School, United and Alexander High School, as well as various community leaders from the City of Laredo, Laredo U.S. Border Patrol, Texas A&M International University and Laredo I.S.D.  Middle and high school students especially, are invited to attend the ceremony, as they must learn to carry on the message and action of peace and tolerance.  

 “Together people of all religions and origins remember the Holocaust, to make our call that persecution and discrimination will be no more,” said Rabbi Gabriel Frydman, of Congregation Agudas Achim. “Please join us on Monday, May 12 here in Laredo in the house of learning, our public library.”

 Most Reverend James A. Tamayo, D.D., First Bishop of the Diocese of Laredo will open the ceremony with an invocation, praying for peace to take hold and help heal the wounds of intolerance that may still linger in the world.

 The Presentation of Colors by the U.S. Customs & Border Protection Combined Law Enforcement Honor Guard, under the direction of the Laredo Sector Border Patrol and the National Anthem, performed by Border Patrol Agent Joshua Steele, follows. City of Laredo Mayor Raul G. Salinas will read a proclamation, proclaiming the day National Holocaust Remembrance Day in Laredo.  Andrea Pina, a junior at United High School will read “The Last Train,” a poem found scribbled on the wall of a concentration camp for teenagers, and the Alexander High School band will perform   “Partisan’s Anthem”by Chava Alberstein, a song about Jewish resistance.  

 “I am so honored to be a part of this very special and moving ceremony,” said Mayor Salinas.  “Even in today’s world, the lessons of the Holocaust are still relevant for us and it is important that we remember what was lost by all of us, Jew and Gentile alike, when evil and intolerance reigned.”

 This year’s keynote speaker for the ceremony is Chaja Verveer, who was born in the Netherlands in 1941. The Germans had already occupied the country in 1940, when, in 1942, the Nazis implemented the deportation of Jews to concentration camps.  When Chaja was only one year old, her family of six went into hiding, splitting up because they were too many to stay together in one place. When the non-Jewish family hiding her was betrayed to the Nazis in 1944, Chaja was sent to the Westerbork, a transit camp in northeastern Holland, from where trains regularly departed for the extermination camps elsewhere. In Westerbork, she was placed in a barrack used as an orphanage for children who had been sent to the camp without their parents.

 The program concludes with the Holocaust Remembrance Day Candle Ceremony.  Although secular in the sense that there are no religious obligations or prohibitions, special prayers and rituals have developed over the years, such as lighting six memorial candles—one for each million of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

 Various community leaders will be participating in treading the prayers associated with the candle ceremony.  Joe Garcia, IV, a fifth grade student at St. Peter’s Memorial School, will read the Prayer for the Children; City of Laredo District VIII Council Member Cindy Liendo will read the Prayer for the Mothers, while District VI Council Member Roque Vela, Jr. will read the Prayer for the Fathers; Texas A&M International University President Dr. Ray Keck will read the Prayer for the Elders; Robert L. Harris, South Texas Campaign Commander, Laredo Sector Chief Patrol Agent will read the Prayer for the Fighters; and Dr. Marcus Nelson, Superintendent of Schools for Laredo I.S.D. will read the Prayer for the Righteous.

 “I am honored to be a small part of our local observance of the ‘Day of Remembrance.’  Being asked to offer the Prayer for the Elders is especially moving for me as so many who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust were denied the opportunity to grow old,” Dr. Keck said. 

 The U.S. Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims.

 In previous presentations about her experience, Verveer addresses the notion that the Holocaust never happened.

 “Some people say it never happened. It happened. It happened to ordinary people in an ordinary place in an extraordinary time,” she said. “I am telling you this because we can create a better world,” she said. “If there is a true concern, people will make things happen.”

 “What you do matters. Remembrance not only obligates us to memorialize those who were killed during the Holocaust, but it also reminds us of the fragility of democracy and the need for citizens to be vigilant in the protection of democratic ideals. We remember because we recognize the importance of preserving freedom, promoting human dignity, and confronting hate whenever and wherever it occurs.” – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

  People of every faith and age are invited to attend the ceremony.  For more information, contact Hilary Frazier at the Laredo Public Library at (956) 795-2400, x2252 or hilary@laredolibrary.org;