East Meadow Jewish Center commemorates Holocaust Memorial Day

The East Meadow Jewish Center recently commemorated Yom H’Shoah — or Holocaust Memorial Day — with a somber service on May 4. The program allowed living Jews to reflect and say prayers of remembrance for the six million Jews who perished in the genocide.

Israeli government officials formally established Yom H’Shoah in 1953 as a day to commemorate the atrocities that occurred in Europe during World War II at the hands of Nazi Germany’s forces. EMJC’s annual service, led by Rabbi Dr. Ronald Androphy, includes the Hebrew school choir singing five songs that were written about the Holocaust and more.

Holocaust survivors and/or children of survivors light six memorial candles during the service; one candle represents one million victims. There was also a keynote speaker: Woodbury resident Annie Bleiberg, a survivor and docent at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County.

Bleiberg told the harrowing tale of how, when being moved from a ghetto in Poland to a concentration camp, she escaped from a transport train; her mother, whom she never saw again, pushed her through an open slat in the wall of the car. Alone, she counted on the kindness of strangers who gave her shelter and food as she did her best to survive and keep from being rounded up by Nazi soldiers.

Eventually, Bleiberg told congregants, she was betrayed by a classmate and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. She survived and was reunited with her father by a neighbor (whom she wound up marrying); her dad lived into his 90s.

In addition to EMJC members, several special guests visited the Prospect Avenue temple to listen to Bleiberg speak and honor the victims. East Meadow High School Principal Richard Howard, Assistant Principal Robert Hardwick and Social Studies Chairperson Sheena Jacob all attended the program.

At the service, Androphy also read a portion of a Torah that was rescued from a synagogue in Rychnov-nad-Kneznou, Czech Republic. This town had dozens of residents killed in the Nazis’ concentration camps.