New Group Hosts Diverse Holocaust Remembrance Day Event This Sunday In Sheepshead Bay
This Sunday, April 27, is Holocaust Remembrance Day and to commemorate the multi-ethnic and religious genocide the Stop Anti-Semitism Foundation is sponsoring Remembrance Day with a ceremony in the Holocaust Memorial Park in Sheepshead Bay.
The ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. by the newly formed non-profit organization, and it will coincide with a day that is commemorated around the globe. The organization is dedicated to fighting hatred and violence against Jews and other religious and ethnic groups. And in keeping with the spirit of the event members of religiously oppressed people will also be attending the event. There will be Holocaust survivors and children of survivors, and leaders from the Jewish, Coptic Christian, Azerbaijani, Korean, Serbian and African-American communities, according to a press release.
The event hopes to reflect the diversity of the victims of Nazi persecution, which targeted gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witesses and numerous other minority groups in addition to the Jewish peoples. For the event’s founder, Dr. Vladimir Gressel, that’s an important point to recall when considering present-day persecution.
The Brooklyn Eagle spoke to Gressel:
While the Holocaust took place more than 70 years ago, violence and terror are still being used today by people who hate others simply because of their nationality or religion, said Dr. Vladimir Gressel, the organization’s founder. “Remembering the horror of the Holocaust and honoring its victims requires us to speak out against the violence and terror victimizing ethnic and religious groups today, he told the Brooklyn Eagle.
“One of the lessons we learned from the Holocaust is that silence is not an option,” said Gressel, a Jew who emigrated from the former Soviet Union several years ago.
As well as commemorating a very dark period in humanity’s history, Gressel and his organization will use the event as a way of raising awareness against current oppression and hatred.
In the press release, the organization writes that they have “become alarmed by the violence and intimidation directed towards Christian communities in the Middle East, Africa and other locations around the world.” And that these “situations that have not received adequate news coverage in the national and international press that remind us of the silence preceding the Holocaust.”
City Councilmembers Chaim Deutsch and Mark Treyger will also be there, along with State Senator Marty Golden and Assemblyman Brook-Krasny.
Featured performances will include a gospel choir of young singers, poetry recited by local children and a string trio. The event will conclude with a solemn ceremony honoring victims of the Holocaust.