Temple Emanu-El of Haverhill Plans Annual Holocaust Remembrance Day Service Friday

Arrival of Hungarian Jews during the summer of 1944 at the German Nazi death camp Auschwitz in Poland.

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Temple Emanu-El in Haverhill is having its annual service commemorating Yom HaSho’ah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) this Friday.

The service features traditional Sabbath liturgy, songs and readings, and includes the participation of members of the Greater Haverhill Clergy Association. Special guest speaker Tom Burke shares the story of Mary Wygodski, a survivor who lost her entire immediate family in the Holocaust, survived three concentration camps and made her way first to Israel and then to America. She dedicated her life to telling the truth about the Holocaust and to fighting hatred and antisemitism. Burke is the author of “Evil Must Not Have the Last Word: The Story of Mary Wygodski,” published in 2021.

“We gather together this year in enduring grief and anger over the atrocities of the Sho’ah,” said Temple Emanu-El Cantor Vera Broekhuysen, “but also in gratitude for the miracle of enduring Jewish survival and the opportunity to once again observe this service inside Temple Emanu-El’s building and with the music of our choir.” She added, “As the Jews of Ukraine this spring experience another devastating expulsion from their homeland, we’ll think—and sing—also of them.”

Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place Friday, April 29, at 7 p.m., at 514 Main St., Haverhill. Those wishing to attend online may click through from the temple’s website, TempleEmanu-El.org.

Yom HaSho’ah, an annual day of remembrance of the victims of the Sho’ah, or Holocaust, was established by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) in 1951 and is observed by Jewish communities worldwide. Sho’ah, which means “catastrophe” or “utter destruction” in Hebrew, refers to the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during World War II.

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