Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein, Holocaust Memorial Day 2019

Having read of a survey that shows an increasing number of people in this country either know nothing about the Shoah or doubt it even happened we know why ever more effort needs to be made to keep alive the memory of this tragedy and the lessons it might teach us.

Last summer Jane Drapkin of Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue arranged a memorial swim in Kolin in the Czech Republic. NPLS is closely connected to Kolin through a Torah scroll and much attention has been given by the synagogue and the town in commemorating to 480 Jews from there murdered in the Shoah. The swim in the town’s river Elbe was in memory of just one Jew from the town, Hana Greenfield, who used to swim in harmony with non-Jewish citizens before the War. In August 2018 it brought many Jews from around Europe and Kolin to swim in the wide river and the event certainly gained much publicity and, in the town, was another reminder of the destruction of its Jewish community in the Holocaust. The mayor announced it would be an annual event.

Earlier this month I attended (as President of LJ) another unique and moving event of a different nature. It was the burial of the remains of six Shoah victims in the Orthodox cemetery in Bushey. The Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue, Rabbi Mirvis, had phoned our Rabbi Danny Rich in advance and invited him to send representatives and I was honoured to go. It was a well organised and most moving event attended by over 1000 people. The grave will form the focus of a new Shoah Memorial and so be yet another way of bringing to mind that terrible episode in our history.

And again NPLS this very week, working closely with Northwood United Synagogue (and other local Orthodox congregations), will welcome maybe 1500 non-Jewish school children during a week of seminars to tell the history of the Holocaust and the lessons that must be learnt from it.