A service to honour the victims and survivors of the Holocaust was held in St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral in Adelaide last week. Source: The Southern Cross.
The annual Remembrance of the Shoah service, held on November 10, is an initiative of the Council of Christians and Jews, the Adelaide Archdiocese and the Beit Shalom Synagogue.
Members of the Jewish and Catholic communities lit six candles of remembrance to represent the six million Jewish people whose lives were lost during the Shoah.
Moments of silence followed the stories of four Holocaust survivors – Leo Cohen, Edith Dubsky, Anne Gouttman and George Klimont – who fled Europe and settled in South Australia.
A liturgy of lament included psalms and a lullaby sung by the Beit Shalom Choir, and a “call to prayer” and Taize chant led by Cathedral cantor Astrid Sengkey.
Cellist Claire Oremland played traditional pieces, including a Yiddish song about a teacher instructing children in the Hebrew alphabet by a traditional stove, a metaphor for Jewish cultural survival.
Fr Michael Trainor, co-chair of the South Australian Council of Christians and Jews, said the history of relations between Christians and Jews had been a tormented one, and “the Christians among us deeply regret the errors and failures of so many sons and daughters of the Church”.
He also emphasised the importance of the service in view of increasing antisemitism.
A candle of hope was brought forward by Andrew Steiner from the Adelaide Holocaust Museum and Stephen Downs from the Catholic community.
Rabbi Franklyn (Frankie) Salzman invited those present to “reach out a hand of friendship and wish one another ‘shalom’ (peace)” in the presence of the candle of hope.
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United in sorrow and hope (By Jenny Brinkworth, The Southern Cross)
