PARIS — Holocaust survivors sang at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, danced in Paris and lit candles in other cities to celebrate Hanukkah together, recalling Nazi horrors that Jewish community leaders fear are fading from the world’s collective memory.
An 86-year-old man in Moscow described being forced by Nazi occupiers into a ghetto as a child. Elderly survivors in New York shared stories Sunday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.
They worry that today’s youth in many countries don’t recognize names of Nazi death camps, fall prey to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, or don’t realize that 6 million Jews were killed in Hitler’s World War II extermination campaign.
Lighting the Hanukkah candelabra, France’s chief rabbi, Haim Korsia, told survivors in Paris, “What you are, each of you, is exactly like the light. … We will never put out the first flame. When we transmit the knowledge, your experience and when we transmit it to others, it takes nothing from us and it gives to others.”
With folk dancing, festive songs and shared meals, the ceremonies Sunday and Monday also aimed to combat the solitude and other difficulties many survivors face in old age.
Some 400,000 Holocaust victims are estimated to still be alive, about half of them in Israel — and as many as 40% are living in poverty, said Ruediger Mahlo of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which organized the events.
“We want to make this public in order to help them and in order that other people help them as well,” he told The Associated Press.
With tears in their eyes, survivors sang Israel’s national anthem together at the Western Wall, the holiest site in the world where Jews can pray. The mood turned joyous by the time candles were lit, with survivors joining hands, dancing in circles and laughing.