Over 1600 people attended ADL’s 34th annual Governor’s Holocaust Remembrance Program on Thursday, April 16, 2015 at Temple Emanuel in Denver, CO.
Keynote speaker Eva Mozes Kor (OBM), a Holocaust survivor who, along with her twin sister Miriam, survived medical experiments at the hands of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz concentration camp and became a world-renowned author and speaker, shared her experiences and made an impassioned plea to work towards forgiveness.
Reflecting on her remarkable decision to forgive her tormentors, Ms. Kor said:
We should abolish the phrase “forgive and forget.” We cannot forget, but we should forgive, because only through forgiveness can we heal. Only through forgiveness can you take back your own power. We should instead adopt the motto: “forgive and heal.”
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper spoke about our responsibility to act when confronted by acts of bigotry and hate.
In recognizing several milestone anniversaries occurring this year, ADL Regional Director Scott L. Levin cautioned, “When good people fail to speak out and take action, it allows for more harassment, more brutality, more death.” Levin noted that Adolf Hitler, himself, proved this point in August of 1939 when he asked, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilations of the Armenians?” According to Levin:
Today, of all days, on this Yom HaShoah, we must speak of the individuals that died in the Holocaust, but we must also speak of the Armenians, we must speak of the people that died in the killing fields of Cambodia, the Tutsi and moderate Hutu that were slaughtered in Rwanda, the men, women and children killed in Darfur, and this year, we add to the list of those that we must speak of, the Yzidi, whom ISIL attempted to wipe out last year. . . . We can never again allow someone to cynically ask the question, ’Who will speak of these people?’ The answer, of course, is that we must all speak, as we do tonight and our honored survivors do by their presence each and every day; we speak of the parent, grandparent, child, aunt, uncle, neighbor and friend. And one day, we pray, we will have no more anniversaries of new atrocities and liberations to mark.
The program included a candle-lighting ceremony memorializing Holocaust victims and honoring Holocaust survivors, accompanied by a powerful and moving violin rendition of the theme from Schindler’s List played by 12 year-old Edward Ansill Meyer during the candle-lighting. A highlight was the presentation of awards to the winners of the Moral Courage Student Essay Contest, who wrote about their heroes in the fight for human rights in many realms. To learn more about the contest and read the winning essays, click here.
ADL Board Members Justin Borus, Daniel Feiner, Andy Gurrentz and Sharon Schonhaut chaired the program. The event was made possible by the generous support of The Feiner Family Foundation, Michael and Debbie Feiner, MDC/Richmond American Homes Foundation, the Curtiss-Lusher Family and JEWISHcolorado.