The 2025 Governor’s Holocaust Remembrance Program  took place on April 23 at Temple Emanuel in Denver, CO with over 1300 attendees in person and online. Colorado Governor Jared Polis offered his annual Message to Colorado, Rabbi Barry Gelman of The Denver Kehilla in Denver delivered the invocation, Cantor Elizabeth Sacks movingly chanted the El Rachamim memorial prayer and ADL Mountain States Regional Director Susan Rona delivered remarks highlighting the responsibility of Jews impacted by antisemitism to speak up and welcome allies into the conversation. The featured presentation was a keynote conversation between Colorado State Senate President Pro Tem Dafna Michaelson Jenet and Pete Metzelaar, who survived the Holocaust with his mother in hiding in the Netherlands.  

ADL thanks the primary sponsors that made the program possible: The Curtiss-Lusher and Lusher Families, The Chotin Foundation & Family, Michael and Debbie Feiner and the Feiner Family Foundation, GSR Fund, Inc. and Gregory S. Rosenblum and Family, JEWISHcolorado, Ruth Malman and Michael Opatowski, M.B. Glassman Foundation, MDC/Richmond American Homes Foundation, Spencer Fane LLP and University of Denver. We are grateful to the members of our honorary host committee and many community partners for supporting the event. We also thank our dedicated program co-chairs, ADL regional board members Gay Curtiss-Lusher, Joanne Kleinstein and Sarla Thal. 

We also thank Michael Feiner and the Feiner Family Foundation who provided the Triumphant Spirit photo exhibit featuring Colorado Holocaust Survivors to display in the lobby leading into the program, and Temple Emanuel for once again hosting the event in their beautiful and historic sanctuary.  

If you missed the program or would like to share it with others, you may watch the recording here.