 |
| Photo Credit: Israel News photo: Flash 90 |
 |
Left to right: Chief Cantor of Bucharest Jewish Community
Yosef Adler,
Chief Rabbi of Romania Rafael Sheffer, Ben Helfgott, Chaim Chesler, Herman Cahn- childhood friend of Elie Wiesel, Ovidiu Nemes, and Elisabeta Ungurianu. Marc Israel Sellem |
An eponymous memorial plaza opened in Bucharest on Monday to the memory of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. Attending the opening ceremony were the ambassadors to Romania of
Israel, the US, China, Italy and Austria, officials of the Elie Wiesel
Institute and of the Federation of Romania's Jewish Communities (FCER)
as well as Bucharest District 1 Mayor Dan Tudorache. Opening the Elie Wiesel memorial plaza were Bucharest City General
Mayor Gabriela Firea, FCER Chairman Aurel Vainer and Chief Rabbi of
Romania Rafael Scheffer. "I have submitted to the General Council a draft motion under which
this so beautiful central space becomes a landmark, a commemoration area
that will make people remember the personality of Elie Wiesel, a man
who fought for human values, for humanitarianism, justice, truth freedom
and democracy, and do so not only when we pass by, but at any moment.
The horrors that happened in the world should never repeat. That dark
era of history could repeat itself, unless we today take care of the
human values that we have to bequeath to the future generations. There
is an added duty we have to fulfill, of telling the true story of this
country, of this city, of Europe's states, the history of America;
school children should know," said Firea. She also mentioned a project for the construction of Romania's Museum
of Jewish History and Holocaust Remembrance. "The building standing at
18-20 Lipscani Street will be turned into a Holocaust Museum, and I am
honoured to be part to this highly ambitious project. (...) It is only
by solidarity, commitment and the consciousness of humankind that we can
overcome together all the difficult moments, only by learning the true
history, so that the bleak moments full of shadows will no longer repeat
themselves," said Firea. US ambassador Hans Klemm said he is honoured to attend the event,
thanking the Bucharest officials for their commitment to this initiative
to the memory of Elie Wiesel. The ambassador said Wiesel was born in Romania but he became a US
citizen, having spent his childhood in the town of Sighetul Marmatiei [Sighet],
where his world concentrated on Jewish religious education and community.
Wiesel's deportation during WWII, said the ambassador, changed his life
forever. In 1944 Wiesel and his older sisters survived the Auschwitz
extermination camp, where his mother and younger sister died.
Remarkably, the ambassador added, he also survived the Buchenwald camp,
where his father died before the camp was freed by the Allies in 1945.
Klemm said Wiesel's mission was to make sure the world remembers the
Holocaust, and he did so simply and directly, by telling his story and
the story of other victims. Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in
1986. Klemm also said that Wiesel would repeatedly say in his works that he
will never forget. Many did not survive the Holocaust, but Wiesel did,
and through his actions he taught others to survive, the ambassador
added. He said that although Wiesel died in July 2016, his legacy will
go on, wishing for the memorial plaza to bear testimony to how people
remember Elie Wiesel, whose name became synonymous with faith, hope and
trust. FCER Chairman Aurel Vainer underscored in his turn the importance of
the opening of the Elie Wiesel Plaza. "A plaza in the heart of Bucharest
City, in the most select of the city's quarters, is dedicated to the
memory of Elie Wiesel and that is amazing. (...) This is how we take
over a testament of his that says we will never forget and we should not
forget the horrors of the Holocaust, but at the same time, you can rest
assured that we can never forget Elie Wiesel. He is the one to reside
over a famous, very busy committee on Holocaust studies in Romania and
based on its final report the Romanian Government adopted this openness
toward recognising the Holocaust in Romania and created October 9 as a
Holocaust remembrance day, because it is the date when Bukovina's Jews
started being deported to Transnistria," said Vainer. Elie Wiesel Institute Director Alexandru Florian underscored in his
turn the importance of the memorial plaza opened in downtown Bucharest.
"This is for the first time in 75 years that a public organisation — the
Bucharest local administration — takes the initiative, a first, opening
and supporting this event that inaugurates a public space signifying
the memory of the Holocaust victims and of all those who in the
contemporary history of Romania have advocated by their projects the
respect of citizens' rights and freedoms. The National Instituted for
Holocaust Studies in Romania considers Elie Wiesel to be first of all a
personality of the world who fought his entire life for the preservation
of the Holocaust memory and who would send messages to the world's most
powerful people urging them to respect human rights and freedoms," said
Florian. AGERPRES (RO — author: Catalina Matei, editor: Claudia
Stanescu; EN — author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Simona
Klodnischi) AGERPRES Wikipedia
***
Holocaust Museum Opened in Elie Wiesel's Childhood Home By Tova Dvorin
Holocaust museum and learning center in Sighet, Romania memorializes the fall of Romanian and Transylvanian pre-war Jewry. The first public Holocaust education center in Romania
opened Sunday in the pre-war childhood home of Nobel Prize-winning
author Elie Wiesel, with special events in his hometown of Sighet. The opening was sponsored jointly by the Government of Romania, the
City of Sighet, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against
Germany, the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the
Holocaust in Romania, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the
Romanian Jewish Federation, the Caritatea Foundation and Limmud Former
Soviet Union (FSU). This is the first in a series of events that will mark 70 years since
the expulsion of the last Jews of Northern Transylvania to Auschwitz.
Among the events in Sighet this past weekend was a concert memorializing
Holocaust victims on Saturday night, after Shabbat.
Elie Wiesel’s Childhood home, which is now a museum Marc Israel Sellem
In 1944, two days after Passover, the Jews of Maramures
County, in Northern Transylvania, were rounded up and forced into 13
ghettos. Eventually, 131,639 Jews from Northern Transylvania were
deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau; most were murdered. Between 280,000 and
380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were murdered or otherwise died
during the Holocaust in Romania - a Nazi ally - and the territories
under its control. An additional 135,000 Romanian Jews, living under
Hungarian control in Northern Transylvania, also perished in the
Holocaust, as did some 5,000 Romanian Jews in other countries. “The story of the Jews who lived in North Transylvania has not
been widely told until now,” said Chaim Chesler, Chairman of the Claims
Conference’s Memorial Committee. “The education center commemorates the
terrible fate that befell the Jews of this area, and ensures their story
will not be forgotten.” The “Holocaust Cellar” became a new feature of the existing
Holocaust museum, in the old Jewish Ghetto of Sighet in Maramures
County. The Cellar will serve as a learning center dedicated to the
13,000 local Jewish Holocaust victims. Professor Wiesel spoke at the event via a live video feed. “To all of you at the opening of the new Holocaust Cellar in my
home in my little town of Sighet in the Carpathian Mountains: I so wish
that I could be there with you today," he said. "The house I was raised
in is now a museum but to me it will always be uniquely special,
eliciting the warmest of memories until the darkness of the kingdom of
night befell us."
Wiesel gave his personal blessing to the project. "I hope that your meetings, though melancholy in nature, are fruitful, enriching and full of meaningful learning," he stated. Among the participants at the event were Viktor Opaschi, the Romanian
Minister of Religious Affairs; Irina Cajal, Deputy Minister of
Education; Ben Helfgott, Vice President of the Claims Conference and
leader in the UK Holocaust survivor community; Romanian parliament
members; Rafael Sheffer, Chief Rabbi of Romania; Cantor Yosef
Adler; Ovidiu Nemesh, the Mayor of Sighet; Harry Marcus, head of the
Sighet Jewish community, as well as other leaders of the Romanian Jewish
Federation; prominent journalists from Israel, the United States and
Romania; and members of Limmud FSU.
Israel National News
Israel National News
