Holocaust 'horror' remembered

Sydney
7 April 2002

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Holocaust 'horror' remembered

Israel's Consul-General, Ephraim Ben-Matiyahu, will address the annual Holocaust Memorial service in the crypt of St Mary's Cathedral.

The president of the NSW Council of Christians and Jews, Salvation Army Major Graham Harris, said Mr Ben-Matiyahu's acceptance of the council's invitation to participate in the service should be a practical example of the need to recognise the importance of a Shoah commemoration by non-Jews.

(Shoah, the Hebrew word for Holocaust, refers - says Sr Trish Madigan, liaison officer for the Archdiocesan Commission of Ecumenism - to the "cold blooded and systematic destruction of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II, a process that began in 1933 and continued for 12 years".)

The honorary secretary of the Council of Christians and Jews, Sr Marianne Dacy, explained that the theme of the event has always been "for Christians and all people of com passion who remember 1933-1945 even if they were not yet born".

The altar is dressed in black and white for the service to signify the darkness of the Shoah.

A yellow Magen David (Star of David) bearing the stark word "Jude" is attached to the black drape.

Eight candles are placed on the altar - six for the six million who died in the Shoah, one for the non-Jews who died and one honouring the righteous Gentiles who risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbours.

The words "never again!" ring through the crypt.

A ninth candle is lit at the end of the service as a sign of hope.

Major Harris said there were a number of events in the Jewish calendar during Holocaust Remembrance Week, "but none which stretches across the boundaries of the broader community".

He urged more Church members "to see their way clear to being part of an understanding of the other and commemorating with the other".

Sr Trish Madigan said that "this recognition of the fact that the Holocaust occurred challenges us to

consider how a long 2000-year history of anti-Jewish preaching in the Christian churches may have contributed to it".

She added: "It is important for us to play our part in making sure that such a horror never occurs again."

The official Jewish community Days of Shoah (Holocaust) Awareness program will be launched at the Martyrs' Memorial Service at 11am on Sunday, April 7, at the Holocaust Memorial Monument in the Jewish section of Rookwood Cemetery.

The service in the Crypt of St. Mary's Cathedral (entrance from Cathedral St) is at 5.30pm on Wednesday, April 10.