By: Tom Fletcher
VICTORIA - Some were frail but all were firm in their commitment to remember, as more than 90 survivors of the World War II death camps and purges in Europe gathered at the B.C. legislature for a memorial service Tuesday.
Attorney General Wally Oppal said B.C. was the second province to honour Holocaust Memorial Day with annual ceremonies the past five years.
"It's a day to remember the six million Jewish men, women and children killed by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945," Oppal said. "Holocaust Memorial Day is also a day to remember that over five million people died during the same time because of their physical or mental disabilities, race religion or sexual orientation."
Premier Gordon Campbell presented a framed certificate to Mark Weintraub, chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress Pacific Region, and six survivors lit candles, one for each million people who died.
"As we watch so many precious people be ravaged by hatred and greed today, the lessons of the Holocaust, the Shoah, are still profoundly relevant," Weintraub said.
Rita Akselrod, president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, recalled how as a child she fled Romania after Russian occupation and ended up in a camp in Austria, "stateless and without identity."
There she met her future husband Ben, who spoke a different language, and they eventually made their way to B.C. to raise their family.
"As a survivor I can tell you that one of our greatest concerns is that the Holocaust may be forgotten," she said.
Also appeared in the Victoria News, Parksville Qualicam News, Esquimalt News, Peninsula News Review, Sannich News, Oak Bay News, Goldstream News, Kamloops this week, Surrey Leader, Williams Lake Tribune, Peach Arch News and Chilliwack Progress.
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