Atlanta Gathers for Yom HaShoah Memorial

An estimated crowd of more than 500 participated in the 59th anniversary of the Yom HaShoah ceremony at the Memorial to the Six Million at Yom HaShoah.

The program began with the traditional Presentation of Colors by Junior Navy ROTC students from Peachtree Ridge High School and the singing of the “Star-Spangled Banner” by Stella Galanti, a junior at The Weber School.

This year’s Holocaust speaker was George Rishfeld, a child survivor from Poland, who was saved by a Catholic family that put their own lives at risk. Later in life, Rishfeld coordinated efforts to have this family recognized by Israel as “Righteous Among the Nations.” To this day, Rishfeld wears his St. Christopher’s medallion alongside his Star of David.

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This year marked the 59th anniversary of the Yom HaShoah ceremony at the Memorial to the Six Million at Greenwood Cemetery // Photo Courtesy of Karen Lansky Edlin

Rishfeld as a baby was wrapped in scraps of fur and thrown over a barbed wire fence into the waiting arms of a young woman, whose father was the foreman of Rishfeld’s parents’ fur company. This same family protected George from Nazi authorities until the end of the war. Unbeknownst to Rishfeld, both of his parents survived the war.

George’s natural parents had been separated and neither his mother nor father knew that each other had survived until seeing each other at the train station awaiting the arrival of their son.

U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff brought greetings from Congress and shared his family’s account of navigating the Holocaust with the loss of many relatives.

Sen. Ossoff told the story of his cousin, Nathan, who survived the Holocaust and spoke to the importance of hearing from Holocaust survivors and keeping their stories alive for future generations.

“I share with you this story because I know that it echoes many of the stories in your own households in your own families, and I think what’s sometimes lost on the rest of the world is that the industrial scale slaughter of our people, the determined effort to exterminate us is not some ancient mythology — it’s not some lesson from deep in the history books — it’s an experience of our families and experience within whose living memory we were raised and within which we still live,” Sen. Ossoff said.

“I have a two-year-old baby daughter at home,” Sen. Ossoff continued, “and I was just reflecting, Karen, that when I hear at an event like this a Jewish baby or a Jewish child, I hear an act of defiance and evidence of the failure to destroy us. I close at this deeply painful and fraught and dangerous moment by assuring you that any who wish to destroy the Jewish people will be fought and will fail again, and in the United States Senate, you have a representative fully committed to ensure that we survive.”

George Rishfeld, a child Holocaust survivor from Poland, was this year’s featured speaker // Photo Courtesy of Karen Lansky Edlin

This 59th anniversary was particularly meaningful as those that attended could see the freshly completed restoration of the Memorial on both the exterior and the interior. A major part of the restoration of the memorial was the extensive cleaning of the 150 plaques which were taken down to be hand washed and rewaxed. The six large torches that hover over the memorial were refinished and required new gas lines to be installed as well as a redesign to accommodate a new electronic lighting system.

Ben Hirsch (of Blessed Memory), who designed the Memorial to the Six Million, was an accomplished architect of churches and synagogues. He was a child when he arrived in Atlanta from Frankfort, Germany and did not speak English. He graduated from Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture.

Rabbi Joseph Prass, Director of the Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education at The Breman Museum, delivered the D’var Torah and was followed by Robyn Winnick, Chair of the Yom HaShoah Planning Committee, Karen Lansky Edlin, from Eternal Life-Hemshech, and Mike Murphy, Board Chair of The Breman Museum.

All Holocaust survivors in attendance were recognized and given small yahrzeit candles to light and then escorted into the interior of the memorial.

Another poignant part of the program was a reading by Helen Kasten in Yiddish with her daughter, Alana Sonenshine, of “Where Shall I Go?”, written by S. Korntayer, who died in the Warsaw Ghetto.

The Stones of Remembrance were painted by Atlanta area school students to memorialize the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust // Photo Courtesy of Karen Lansky Edlin

Rabbi Laurence Rosenthal recited El Maleh Rachamim and Robert Ratonyi, survivor from Hungary, led the Kaddish.

Ben Walker, a survivor from Romania, ended the program with the Partisan Hymn. He was joined by audience members.

At the conclusion of the program, everyone was invited to take a Stone of Remembrance and place it in the memorial. The yellow yahrzeit candles were provided by Congregation Etz Chaim’s Men’s Club to each person in attendance.

Stones of Remembrance were painted by Atlanta area school students to memorialize the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust.

The memorial ceremony was jointly sponsored by Eternal Life-Hemshech, The Breman, the Lillian and A.J. Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta.