It’s Holocaust Remembrance Week when people around the world will commemorate the millions of victims of the Nazis’ World War II extermination campaign. The remembrance was first established as Yom Hashoah by the Israeli parliament in 1953 to coincide with the liberation of concentration camps in Western Europe and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the largest Jewish-led revolt against the Nazis during the war.
Steve Gonzer of Wilmington’s Halina Wind Preston Holocaust Education Center says it’s important to pay homage to the victims and their families.
“And to help never forget what happened so that it doesn't happen in the future,” he says, “And for personal reasons, I know I like to reconnect with my past and the tapestry that was my family before they were all murdered for no reason at all. It’s very critical to remember. I think we all need to do that.”
Gonzer is also the producer and director of the documentary “No Denying: Delawareans Bear Witness to the Holocaust.” He adds it is crucial, seven decades after the war ended, to teach new generations about the Holocaust because the original witnesses are aging and quickly dying out.
“It’s really important to continue the discourse and to teach young people about genocide,” he says. “We are hoping that the second generation, the children of the eyewitnesses, will be the people to carry that torch.”