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DALLAS TWP. —Rabbi Larry Kaplan began by reading just the names of those murdered in the Holocaust, but then paused, noted the list included ages, and added them out loud. The names may have been foreign and distant, the ages were immediate and piercing: Teens, tots, even infants, killed without cause or sense.
“One … four … eight … seven …”
Kaplan, of Temple Israel, was the first of 20 people who each spent five minutes reading as many names as could be pronounced during a two-hour Holocaust Remembrance ceremony in the lobby of Misericordia University’s Banks Student Life Center.
Each in turn stuck to Kaplan’s precedent and included ages, offering scores of people from nearly newborn to in their 70s, snuffed out in Nazi Germany.
“Lively Jewish villages were left in ruin,” Stacy Gallin said during an introduction to what was officially titled Yom Hashoah.
“Jewish for catastrophe,” explained Gallin, director of thee university’s Center for Human Dignity in Bioethics, Health and the Holocaust. “But it seems to me to be about more than catastrophic destruction. It’s about the opportunity to rebuild.”
Sister Jean Messaros and Kaplan offered a prayer in both English and Hebrew. “Soothe our souls, amplify our memories, strengthen our resolve … “
Sister Cindy March lit five yellow Holocaust remembrance candles and one larger “Mercy” candle, from the Sisters of Mercy who founded the school. The yellow candles “are for the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust,” Gallin said, and the lone Mercy candle commemorated Lori Gilbert-Kaye, a 60-year-old worshiper killed in the shooting at a Passover service in a San Diego synagogue.
“She died rising up to protect the rabbi, and the congregants,” Gallin said.
The small crowd prayed together.
“When evil darkens our world, let us be the bearers of light. When fists are clenched in self-righteous rage, let our hands be open for the sake of peace. When injustice slams doors on the ill, the poor, the old and the strangers, let us pry the doors open.”
After that, the reading of names began, each reader starting with the same words, noting speaking the names allows them to be memorialized, and is a “pledge to fulfill our promise of never again.”
The ages kept coming, kept reminding of how indiscriminate the horror had been.
“14 … 13 … 10 … 16 ….”
Students lined up at a nearby Chik-fil-A counter on the other side of a glass wall. Others stopped for popcorn and flavored ice at a table outside. A man stood at a post office counter around the corner from the lobby.
“I am the child of German Jewish refugees and the grandson of Holocaust victims,” David Schwager said by way of introduction when he replaced Kaplan at the podium. Then Schwager, a member of the board of directors for the Pauline and Sydney Friedman Jewish Community Center, read more names, gave more ages.
“77 … 56 … 11 … 4 … “
A woman placed an order at a Starbucks counter down the hall. Two students chatted about a party as they entered from a side door. A custodian emptied a trash container.
Student Sidney Kabinoff stepped to the podium, read the intro about pledging “to fulfill our promise of never again,” and began reading names. And ages.