Night of terror remembered
News
Christians and Jews of Adelaide stood together in solidarity against hatred and oppression on the anniversary of Kristallnacht or ‘night of broken glass’, a turning point in the Nazi's persecution of Jews as Germans rioted across the country on November 9, 1938, targeting Jewish homes and businesses.
The annual event also commemorated the Holocaust, or Shoah, a genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945.
Fr Philip Marshall, Administrator Delegate, welcomed all those who took part: cantor, readers, Beit Shalom Choir members, including Rabbi Shoshana Kaminski of the Beit Shalom Synagogue, and students from Blackfriars Priory School.
“With the deepest heart I welcome every person who is here tonight into this our sacred space,” he said.
“We are in the most profoundest sense all of us brothers and sisters, we are all children of God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob and tonight we look back on the horror that erupts in the world when we forget our deep familial connections and we who are Christians look back with sorrow and repentance at the complicity or the silence of our brothers and sisters and tonight we express our deep sorrow to you our Jewish brothers and sisters.
“We know that this terrible inhumanity abides so close below the surface all the time so our hearts are broken with yours as we acknowledge and remember those terrible deaths in Pittsburgh.
“Tonight we link our lives and we link our hearts with each other in remembrance and in sorrow and in prayer and in hope – we remember the Shoah so that we may never forget our commitment to a new healed world of safety and love and Shalom for all people.”
Rev Michael Trainor, co-chair, Council of Christians and Jews, expressed the hope that never again would such evil be perpetrated.
Student of Blackfriars Priory School lit six candles of Remembrance to present the six million Jews whose lives were lost during the Shoah. Personal stories from the war were also shared along with prayers.
Andrew Steiner from the Beit Shalom Community and Jill Gallio from the Catholic Community were invited to bring forward the Candle of Hope and place it among the other candles as the Beit Shalom Choir sang Osé shalom.
Jump to next article
Comments
Show comments Hide comments