By Wendy Weisbrot

I’m a bit astonished that Passover is a distinct and meaningful memory, as I put away our Haggadot and still find a few remaining matzah crumbs in the most obscure places.  Our Seders were vibrant and beautifully chaotic in our son and daughter in law’s home in Chicago, with both of their families present, now one family through the union of marriage.  New traditions were introduced, family stories shared, and like many of you, we had an empty chair at our table to represent the October 7 victims, hostages and soldiers who continue to remain in our hearts.  We pray for their safe return.

Although all Jewish festivals entail remembrances, Passover is the ultimate memory holiday.  The Haggadah literally means “recounting” or “telling.”  Its pages do not merely tell the story, but positions us as storytellers, through the act of reading from it at the seder.  The immersive experience which includes the re-enactment of the Exodus, with plenty of matzah and marror for adults and children around the table, ensures that what happened long ago is kept in living memory. 

 On that night, we observed a unique command, the command of communication and education, as it states in Exodus 13:8, “And you shall tell your children…”

As we approach our annual community Yom HaShoah commemoration on Sunday, I believe that that there is an essential link between Passover and Yom HaShoah – it is in the power and necessity of remembrance.  The Bible taught Jews to remember and retell the story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt with the crossing of the Red Sea and the journey through the dessert, to the dream of a Promised Land. Our few remaining local Holocaust Survivors, and now our Descendants of the Holocaust, remember and share their tragic stories of incomprehensible loss to validate their survival; they tell the stories for those who did not survive, while fervently hoping to transform the future by taking the lessons of the Holocaust forward to future generations and generations beyond.

Yehuda Bauer, Israel’s most significant Holocaust scholar and educator has listed three commandments as stemming from the Holocaust in a speech he gave on Holocaust Remembrance Days.  Bauer said:

“Thou shall not be a perpetrator;

Thou shall not be a victim;

And above all, thou shall not be a bystander.”

Yehuda Bauer has told us what we must not be.

Holocaust Survivors and Righteous Among the Nations (non-Jewish Holocaust Rescuers) have most passionately and poignantly taught us what we must be:  Upstanders. These esteemed heroes had the moral courage to share their stories because both the Survivor and Righteous Among the Nations, simply put, knew how critical it was to not be a bystander. 

And so, the Holocaust Education and Research Organization (HERO, formerly HRC) invites you on Sunday, May 5 to an incredibly moving and historic day in Jewish Buffalo where you will have the opportunity to be inspired and empowered by Holocaust Survivors, their Descendants, and the Descendants of WNY Righteous Among the Nations.

Please join us at noon in the Research Studies Auditorium at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center as we gather as a unified and resilient community to commemorate Yom HaShoah as we honor the Ambrus, Baranski/Forgach, Bink, Feldman, Joffe, Morrison, Redlich/Stein, Weinstein, and Weinrieb families.  Following our commemoration, the ribbon cutting of our Righteous Among the Nations Mural will take place outside of Roswell’s Research Studies Auditorium to honor three extraordinary Hungarians who risked their lives to rescue, hide, and save Hungarian Jews during the Shoah.  Tibor Baranski, Dr. Clara Ambrus, and Sister Margit Slachta were honored and named by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.  You will hear from their descendants how they defied the Nazis to collectively save more than 10,000 innocent Jews from extermination.

Let us remember and tell our children of the heroic and selfless stories we will hear on Sunday, and let us look to take those lessons from the Holocaust forward.  The Talmud teaches that if a person saves one life, it is as if they’ve saved an entire world.  May we all recognize that one moment of upstanding can transform, and as individuals may we always strive to be among the Righteous.

Wendy Weisbrot is Co-Chair of HERO and a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor.