Temple Anshei Shalom Holocaust Memorial

We Remember the Six Million

Responsive Reading

Let us now pause to recall the bitter catastrophe which so recently has befallen our people in Europe. When in the past our brothers were massacred in ruthless pogroms, the poet Bialik, in his “City of Slaughter”, cried out against this bloody savagery.

Today we mourn, not only for one “city of slaughter” but for many such cities where six million of our people have been brutally destroyed.

The cruelties of Pharaoh, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar and Titus cannot be compared to the diabolical devices fashioned by modern tyrants in their
design to exterminate a whole people

No generation has known a catastrophe so vast and tragic!

The blood of the innocent, who perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Majdanek, Treblinka and Theresienstadt, cries out to God and to man.

How can we ever forget the burning of synagogues and houses of study, the destruction of the holy books and scrolls of the Torah, the sadistic torment and murder of our scholars, sages, and teachers?

They tortured the flesh of our brothers, but they could not crush their spirit, their faith, nor their love of Torah.

The parchment of the Torah was burned, but the letters were indestructible.

In the Warsaw Ghetto, Jews valiantly defied the overwhelming forces of the inhuman tyrant. These martyrs lifted up their voices in a hymn reaffriming their faith in the coming of the Messiah, when justice and peace shall finally be established for all men.

“I believe with a perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah and though he tarry, nonetheless do I believe he will come!”

Let us pray: O Lord, remember Thy martyred children; remember all who have given their lives for KIDDUSH HASHEM, the sanctification of Thy name.

Grant their souls the peace reserved for all the righteous who are in Thy tender keeping.

And as we mourn Our People’s tragic fate, we also recall the compassionate men and women of other faiths and nationalities who, at the peril of their lives, protected and save thousands of Jews.

They are among those whom our Rabbis had in mind when they taught: “The righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come”

Let us all pray and work together for that day when there shall be no more violence or desolation anywhere on this earth, when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.”

South Florida Web AdvisorsTemple Anshei Shalom Holocaust Memorial