Minn. survivors to mark Holocaust tonight
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas is marking Holocaust Remembrance Day Monday night with an event featuring Minnesota survivors.
Steve Hunegs, the council's executive director, said it's the 33rd year the council has organized the commemoration, called the Yom HaShoah.
"One of the most poignant moments of the Yom HaShoah will be when the survivors come to light candles in which they remember all those who perished in the Holocaust and affirm life at the same time," Hunegs said.
Hunegs says about 50 Holocaust survivors live in Minnesota.
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"Each survivor survived because of remarkable circumstances," he said. "They came to Minnesota, made their lives, raised their families, ran their businesses, despite the horror of what they saw."
Eli Rosenbaum, a long-time federal prosecutor of Nazi war criminals, will speak at Monday's event in Minnetonka.
Israel established Holocaust Remembrance Day as an annual memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed in World War II by German Nazis and their collaborators. It coincides with the date of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the largest act of Jewish resistance against the Nazis.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)