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Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry has passed away after a brief battle with cancer.

Yom HaShoah Commemoration Highlights Importance Of Remembering The Holocaust

Zach Bernard/WBOI News

Yom HaShoah, known in the United States as Holocaust Remembrance Day, is observed annually to honor the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and took place on April 11 and 12 this year. The Jewish Federation of Fort Wayne and New Tech Academy of Wayne High School partnered to commemorate the day in the city Monday.

Sirius XM classical music host and author Martin Goldsmith visited Fort Wayne to serve as the keynote speaker for the city’s annual Yom HaShoah address, and met with New Tech Academy students at Wayne High School Monday morning. He spoke about how his parents’ experience in an orchestra in Nazi Germany helped protect them from concentration camps, and shared stories of growing up in America in the aftermath of World War II.

Goldsmith’s mom played the viola, and his dad played the flute. They met in a Jewish cultural association -- or Kulturbund -- that would eventually be broken up once Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January, 1933.

“In the late spring and summer of 1933, these Jewish artists came together reasoning, ‘Well, if we can no longer make art for fellow Germans, we can make art for our fellow German Jews.’”

So, they created a brand new Kulturbund comprised of Jewish artists for German Jews. Goldsmith describes it as “an isolated, ghettoized experienced,” but says this became critical to his parents’ survival.

“The Nazis used the existence of this Kulturbund as a propaganda tool as international criticism arose such as it did, the Nazis -- in particular Joseph Goebbels -- said, ‘Well, how bad can it be for the Jews? Look, they have their own orchestra, they have their own opera company. We’re treating them just fine, don’t believe these phony stories you’re hearing.’”

“So members of the Kulturbund were protected, and my parents were protected until they were able to escape Germany quite literally at the last minute, arriving at Ellis Island in June of 1941,” Goldsmith said.

Last week, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany determined from a sample of 1,350 American adults that two-thirds of millennials were unable to identify what Auschwitz was, and 22 percent said they hadn’t heard of the Holocaust.

Goldsmith says there have been many cases of “man’s inhumanity to man,” but fears the calculated nature of the Holocaust could be repeated without that knowledge.

“The industrial cruelty of what we know of as the Holocaust sort of sets it apart,” said Goldsmith. “And for kids today or adults today to be unaware of that just makes another such terrible incident a bit more possible in the present and in the future.”

New Tech Academy students at Wayne High School are not as ignorant of history, and were heavily involved in the commemoration. Students of all ages and grade levels were inquisitive, spending more than 90 minutes engaging Goldsmith in dialogue on the content of his books.

Jeff Roberts is in his sixth year as a social studies facilitator and trainer with New Tech. He said the hardest part of teaching the gravity of the Holocaust is getting high school students to connect with something that took place as much as 80 years ago.

“Unfortunately, racism, discrimination, bullying all led up to what was the Holocaust, and it’s really important that these students see the commemoration aspect of Yom HaShoah so that they understand that people to this day are still grieving, and the one thing that we can do as a society is make sure that A) it never happens again; and B) that they’re not a perpetrator,” said Roberts.

That’s why he instructed his students to read Goldsmith’s books, in the hopes that it would resonate with them and help convey that history in a relatable way. He had high expectations for his students, and said they were exceeded.

“To be able to build questions that had so much depth to them, and now I realize that they were reading the book,” he said. “It’s hard with the different locations in Germany and Austria and France that it was hard for the kids to make a connection but obviously after today, they did.”

Credit Zach Bernard/WBOI News

Those students played a large role in assisting the Jewish Federation with its annual Yom HaShoah commemoration, which took place at Congregation Achduth Vesholom Monday evening. Once the service began at 7 pm, the congregation was near capacity, with student volunteers regularly bringing out more chairs for late arrivals.

Songs and prayers were shared among congregants between speakers. Mayor Tom Henry proclaimed April 16, 2018 Yom HaShoah Commemoration Day in the City of Fort Wayne. He said he’s been honored to be invited to participate in the observation every year, and emphasized the significance of his proclamation.

“I don’t forget these proclamations,” said Henry. “We file these away into the city’s records. That way you in the future, when you or others research the history of our city, will realize that our city also chose not to forget.”

Congregants lit candles to honor the six million lives lost in the Holocaust. Roberts then introduced Goldsmith, whose keynote speech focused on how music saved his parents in the Holocaust, and the importance of remembering what happened in Nazi Germany.

The message resonated with attendees, especially the students from New Tech. Gaylord Brooks is a junior, and attended both the Q&A session with Goldsmith as well as the service.

“I learned not to hate, and to accept one through any other culture or any other background and be more accepting of what’s uncomfortable to me,” said Brooks.

One thing Goldsmith and students continued to discuss was reducing the scope of the Holocaust; instead of viewing it as six million people, try to connect with the story of one or two individuals who experienced it. Tommy Redman is a freshman, and said that’s what helped him understand and improve his own awareness.

“I think it’s really important to try and focus on one person and their Holocaust story instead of generalizing it as the whole six million,” Redman said.

With the message of Yom HaShoah clearly resonating with his students, Roberts said it wouldn’t be possible without the partnership with the Jewish Federation, and highlighted Fort Wayne’s diversity as an asset to the community.

“It means a lot to me as a Christian, and it’s really nice to see that, in our community of Fort Wayne with the diversity that we have that we can sit down as a whole entire group, whether they’re 14 or 19 or 41 like me, to see what people have gone through and be an advocate for change or an agent for change, that we will not be a society that will allow this to happen no matter what’s going on in our current government or whatever else.”

Goldsmith says he’s recently been inspired by high school students, adding that he attended the national March for our Lives rally while praising activism of Stoneman Douglas High School students David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez. He compared the awareness of New Tech students favorably to those in Parkland.

“These kids today are following in their footsteps, and I’m just so proud of them and so many kids across the country who are stepping up trying to right what is wrong in this country,” said Goldsmith.

He signed books at the end of the service, and attendees were asked to take home a candle and keep it lit for 24 hours, as a way of extending the remembrance.

Full Disclosure: The Jewish Federation of Fort Wayne is an underwriter of 89.1 WBOI.

Zach joined 89.1 WBOI as a reporter and local host for All Things Considered, and hosted Morning Edition for the past few years. In 2022, he was promoted to Content Director.