The Annual Holocaust Memorial Service was held in Springfield, Ill. on Thursday, April 16, 2015 and was sponsored by the Office of the Governor and the Jewish Federations of Illinois

Welcome & Introductions – David Golder, Chair, Government Affairs Committee, Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago

Today, we join together as we have for the past three decades, in observing Yom HaShoah, the Day of Remembrance. Every day, but especially on Yom HaShoah, we remember the six million Jews of Europe who were murdered in the Holocaust. But today, we also recommit ourselves to being a “light unto the nations” and making sure that the meaning of “never forget” is never forgotten.

Good morning and thank you for joining us. I am David Golder, Chair of the Government Affairs Committee of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, one of the seven Jewish Federations in Illinois.

The Jewish Federations serve as the central address for Jewish philanthropy and human services in over 200 communities in North America. And we, as the Jewish Federations in Illinois, are pleased to join with the Office of the Governor in co-sponsoring this annual Yom HaShoah commemoration.

Today we observe the 72nd Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. On this solemn day, we pay tribute to the courageous Jewish fighters who fought valiantly against all odds and gave hope where there was no hope to be found. This year also marks the 70 ^th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps.

We pledge to remember, year after year, each man, woman and child murdered as part of the effort to exterminate our people. We also honor the survivors of the Holocaust and rededicate our efforts to making sure that this never happens again. We hope and pray that anti-Semitism, bigotry and terrorism will one day be things of the past and that we will soon usher in an era of peace and prosperity for all.

Invocation – Rabbi Alan Cook, Sinai Temple, Champaign

Our God, and God of our fathers and mothers, more than seventy years have elapsed since that terrible time in our world’s history, which saw the callous slaughter of millions of innocents. They say “time heals all wounds,” but it will never fully heal this one-not in the typical manner of healing, in which the hurt is covered over and forgotten. We have taken a vow: zachor -we will remember.

And so we gather on this day. We mourn, yes. But we also remember. We also reaffirm that eternal vow.

We mourn: families torn apart. Lives cut tragically short. Some of the best and most creative minds of the world never permitted to reach their full potential. Some of the greatest centers of Jewish culture and learning destroyed. Political dissidents silenced; Freemasons and Jehovah’s Witnesses slaughtered; Ethnic Poles, African Germans, Roma and Sinti tortured and murdered for failing to conform to a Germanic ideal. Homosexuals and the mentally and physically disabled callously murdered by those who feared their differences. Humanity’s crushing capacity-some might even say propensity-for unspeakable evil starkly exposed: innocence lost that will never be regained. It is enough to cripple us with sadness. It is enough to make us withdraw from a world that is harsh and unkind, that witnessed these horrors and said nothing.

But we cannot and must not do that, for we have been called to remember. We remember those who went before us. And we remember the words attributed to Edmund Burke, composed in the eighteenth century in a wholly different milieu, but still resonant today: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” We vow: we will not allow evil and enmity to triumph over kindness and brotherhood. We know: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We commit ourselves to education, to compassion, to activism. When we see strife in our world: in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Darfur, in Syria, in Nigeria, in our own backyard, we take a stand. When we see social injustices, economic disparities, racism, sexism, and classism, we raise our voices in protest.

And we remember for another reason: though we are blessed to share this commemoration today with those who witnessed and survived these horrors, along with their children and grandchildren, we know that we cannot slow the march of time. We must collectively bear witness to the world so that there can be no denial, no attempts to recast or excuse this chapter of our history. We must consistently educate all the children of the world so that the stories and experiences of the Shoah will not be forgotten.

This is an awesome, and potentially daunting, responsibility, and it often feels depressing to bear such a heavy burden. But intermingled with our remembrance is room for hope. This day that we now commemorate is formally known on the Jewish calendar as “Yom HaZikaron LaShoah ve-la-Gevurah…The Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and of Heroism.” We celebrate the Chasidei Umot HaOlam -the so-called “Righteous Gentiles” who helped so many to escape the camps and the destruction. We celebrate the continued vibrancy and vitality of the worldwide Jewish community. We celebrate the opportunity to live in a country and a state that affords liberty and freedom to all, regardless of race, religion, gender, physical ability, or sexual orientation. We celebrate that for sixty-seven years, the Jewish people have had a country to call their own. We rejoice at the progress that has been made over the past seventy years in sowing seeds of brotherhood and sisterhood, so that understanding and mutual respect may flourish among all the families of the earth. And we know that the journey to such harmony is not yet complete.

In this hour of memory, we pray:

Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, Shekocho U’g’vurato Malei Olam. Praised is our Eternal God, Whose might and majesty inspire us toward great works in the world.

Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, Shenatan Lanu Hizdamnut L’Taken et HaOlam. Praised is our Eternal God, Who has given us the opportunity and the obligation to bring positive change into our society.

Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, Shehehcheyanu V’kiy’manu V’higiyanu Laz’man HaZeh. Praised is our Eternal God, Who has kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to join in this moment of memory.

Remarks – Governor Bruce Rauner

I’m honored and humbled to be here today standing in the presence of survivors to remember the millions who perished in the Shoah. Today’s is a day of remembrance. It’s a day of reflection. It’s a day when we remind ourselves what can happen when evil people do evil things and good people do nothing about it. Today we say never again and we do so in a most uncertain time in our history.

In January a terrorist killed four people in a kosher supermarket in France. That Sabbath the grad synagogue of Paris was closed for the first time since World War II. In February a terrorist killed a Jewish man guarding a synagogue in Denmark. Great Britain reported a huge spike in anti-Semitic acts last year.

In a recent poll more than half of all British Jews said that they believed that Jews may no longer have a long term future in Europe. And all the while the voices in anti-Semitism hide behind a banner of anti-Zionism, calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the only Jewish state on earth. We see it in the Middle East, we see it in Europe and yes we even see it here at home.

Never again must have meaning. Never again must be a call to action today. Let us take this day of remembrance to reaffirm our conviction to fight for human rights to fight against anti-Semitism in all its form, and make good on our generation’s pledge to those that came before us, never again.

Illinois General Assembly – Representative Will Guzzardi

Thank you very much, David, and thank you to Stephanie and the Federation staff for inviting me to speak today.

I understand that I’ve been offered this opportunity as the newest member of the Jewish caucus, a fine group of legislators that I’m proud to join. But I’m also the youngest member of the caucus – don’t be fooled by the grey hair, my 28 ^th birthday is coming up in two weeks. And I think that gives me a different perspective on today’s events. Let me explain what I mean.

Every year, my parents and brother and sister and I spend Thanksgiving with the Gourvitches, an Israeli family we’ve been friends with for 25 years. It’s Yehuda and Rachel, and their children Daniel and Natalie, their kids’ spouses, and Marisha, their elderly neighbor who speaks only a little bit of English. She has a devilish wit, and when she’s got something to say she’ll tell it to Rachel in Polish, but before you get the translation you can see from the glimmer in her eye that something clever is coming.

In recent years, Marisha’s mind has slowly started to fade, along with her hearing and her wit and the bluish numbers tattooed on her forearm. She no longer remembers us, our names or who we are, and one can only hope that she is also being lifted of some of the horrific memories of her internment 70 years ago.

My family was lucky to be untouched by the Holocaust. My grandparents’ families immigrated to the States a generation before, and if we had relatives who perished, none of our family was close to them.

But also: I’m of a different generation. If I should have children – god willing I’ll meet a nice Jewish girl someday soon – our children will be born into a world where the Holocaust only exists in the faded memories of Marisha’s generation. By the time they’re grown up, there might be no more Holocaust survivors still living.

On Pesach, we’re told that we are to behave as if each of us was himself a slave in the land of Egypt. I’ve always had a hard time with that. The trauma of slavery is so unimaginable to me, and the story so historically remote, that I simply cannot locate myself in it.

So what I wonder as I speak to you on the day of remembrance is this: what will I teach my children, who will grow up in a world where survivors and victims alike live only in history, about how the Holocaust is meaningful and relevant in their lives?

Here’s what I think I’ll tell them. It starts, of course, with the credo of Holocaust remembrance: “Never forget.” Because of course we must never forget the indelible fact, the execution of a generation of our people. Never forget, I’ll tell them.

But then I think I’ll tell the great story of Rabbi Hillel and the gentile. “I’ll convert to Judaism if you can explain to me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot,” the gentile says. Rabbi Shammai, Hillel’s foil in so many of these stories, scoffs at the gentile and chases him off. “The Torah is complex, it takes years of study, you could never learn it standing there on one foot.” But Hillel says this: “The Torah’s simple. Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to you. The rest is commentary. And if you’re interested, stick around and we’ll read some of that.”

Here we have perhaps the greatest sage of our 6,000-year tradition, distilling the 613 mitzvot to their barest essence. Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to you.

What I find beautiful about that distillation, and what I find beautiful about our faith, is that this essential commandment is not inward-facing. It’s not “seek enlightenment” or “be good and you’ll go to heaven.” It’s outward-facing. It’s about how we behave in relation to others.

Today, and every day, we demand that the world never forget the horrors that befell our people. We must continue to do so. There are still those who would deny it. And we must be ever vigilant against the next existential threat we face, as there may always be one.

But we are at our best as Jews when the thousands of years of oppression our people have suffered inspire us not just to turn inward and safeguard our people’s future, but to turn outward, in empathy and love and remembrance for all peoples.

We are at our best as Jews when we join the credo of “never forget” with Rabbi Hillel’s injunction not to do to others what we wouldn’t have done to us, so that we refuse to let the suffering of any nation, of any people, be forgotten.

Indeed, we are at our best as Jews when we are truly an or lagoim , a light unto the nations, when we are shining examples of compassion, when we stand with all those victims of genocide and enslavement and oppression and say, “You will not suffer in the dark. You will not struggle alone. We will fight at your side to lift you from oppression. For we too were slaves in the land of Egypt. We too were massacred at Auschwitz and Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen.”

This is the lesson I hope to teach my children about the Holocaust: a lesson of radical compassion. An unimaginable tragedy happened to our people, I’ll tell them, and God spared us so that we might be stronger allies to all people in their fights for human rights.

My children won’t be able to ask Marisha about the Holocaust. Marisha is forgetting. She can’t help it. Let us, then, never forget, for her sake, for our people’s sake, and for the sake of all people who suffer today.

A Survivor’s Remembrance – Madga Brown*

Magda Brown was 17 years old when her world was destroyed. She went from a happy home in her native Hungary to the place where dozens of Jews would be crammed inside on their way to the concentration camps and gas chambers to die.

During her presentation, Brown described unspeakable horror built upon lies, conspiracy and dehumanization. “It was a premeditated, scientifically coordinated mass murder,” she said.

Brown was taken to Auschwitz in 1944. Her mother and father were killed in gas chambers. Her brother, who also survived, served in Hungary’s military Jewish labor force but was later imprisoned by the Russian Army.

But before going to Auschwitz, she said anti-Jewish laws were prevalent in Hungary. There were laws against intermarrying. Professionals were given “the pink slip,” and the next day they were out of jobs.

“There were so many different angles,” she said. “Each law pushed us lower and lower and lower, taking away our freedom,” she said. “Then, they take away your dignity.” When the Nazis came, they were able to move swiftly as the conditions were ripe, Brown said.

“By the time they enter into Hungary, in 51 days they are able to move people from their home to their death,” she said. “Everybody, including little children, had to have this Star of David sewed into their clothing.” A ghetto was designated, and people from the countryside were given an hour to pack. “These poor souls are herded away to the ghetto,” she said.

Brown’s home was part of the ghetto, where there were severe restrictions against Jews. At first they could come and go to buy food during the day. Before long, no one could leave. Forty people were placed in her home, where before only six lived. All jewelry, cash, bicycles, radios and other items were forfeited. The cash was used to pay the railroad worker employed to send them to their death. The Nazis would lie to them, telling the families they would be able to stay together.

“My very beautiful young mother was holding on to me, and now this officer directed me the other way,” she said. Brown never saw her mother again.

On a train to Auschwitz, she was packed into a box car with 70-80 others. There were two buckets: one, for bodily fluids, the other for water to drink. At her destination, all their hair was shaved off, and stinging disinfectant was applied, she said. A shower was a trickle of water. Nothing more.

Brown was one of only 1,000 prisoners to work in an ammunition factory that produced bombs and rockets. Eventually she would be sent on a three-day death march from the factory. During the march, she stole away with a group to an abandoned barn. “And the next day, two young men in strange uniforms saw us,” she said. They were soldiers of the Sixth Armored Division of the U.S. Army. “They liberated us,” she said.

Brown said she always tells young people to think before they hate. And she said she vows to always speak out about the Holocaust. “So it will never, ever happen again,” she said.

*Taken in part from: http://www.kenoshanews.com/news/survivor_recalls_holocaust_horrors_482295163.html

Benediction – Reverend Hannah Dreitcer, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Springfield

A benediction is literally a good saying, meant to mark the end of our service and send us out into the world. But in the face of unspeakable grief that echoes through generations, it is not easy to find a good saying.

In the face of unspeakable grief and horror it is easy to become paralyzed and to go silent, but silence and inaction do no justice to the too many whom we remember today. So this good saying is also meant to be the seed of whatever response we might make to what we have heard and witnessed to today, the candle flame of action that we light inside our hearts, even if that is the only light we can see.

So no matter how dark it might be, let us go into the world, ready to act, and ready to speak our own good sayings-

Have courage.

Hold onto what is good.

Return no one evil for evil.

Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering.

Honor all peoples.

And in the words of a most ancient good saying that has never been silenced:

May God bless you and keep you;

May God be kind and gracious to you;

May God look upon you with favor, and bring you peace. Amen.