Hillel Commemorates Holocaust Victims

In memory of the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust, the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel sponsored a commemorative service on the steps of Widener Library Monday night.

The service, which included readings from works about the Holocaust, was designed to make the audience experience part of the pain suffered by the previous generation, said organizer Jonathan Savett '89-'90.

Beth D. Gamulka '89 said she read a piece written by her father, who escaped the Nazis and lived for 18 months in Germany begging for food when it was safe to enter the cities.

"I've always participated in Holocaust memorial services here at Harvard," Gamulka said. "I felt it was important to share my father's experience to make people stop and think about how we all are survivors."

Other readings included the story of a surviver of the concentration camps presently living in Israel, and passages from Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel's autobiographical Night, organizers said.

The readings also included an account of the deportation of gays and lesbians to concentration camps, Savett said.

Participants finished the service by singing commemorative songs and saying a prayer in memory of the dead, Savett said.

After rain forced the participants to move the proceedings indoors, the Hillel sponsored a showing of the film Night and Fog, a documentary describing what Allied soldiers found when they entered the concentration camp Auschwitz, Savett said.