Utahns remember Holocaust victims
Katz, 84, was 15 years old when he was arrested and taken to a concentration camp while on the way to work. He never saw his parents again.
"I wish I had a picture of them. I have nothing," said Katz, who sometimes lies awake at night, trying to imagine his parents' faces.
Katz keeps his experience alive by talking at schools. He shows students his number.
"I lived it," says Katz. "I'm still here to tell the story."
But as time progresses, the number of survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust is dwindling. At the state Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Memorial Commemoration Thursday, the message was clear: It's critical to keep the memory alive of an event too terrible to fathom.
"At least we here will stand and remember," said Bill Tumpowsky, president of the United Jewish Federation of Utah. "Each breath we in the future generations take is forever laden with the dust of the past."
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. read a proclamation to those gathered at the Utah State Capitol Rotunda, declaring May 1-9 Holocaust Days of Remembrance.
"Let us use history to help shape our future, as we reflect upon the lessons, even the harsh lessons, of history," said Huntsman.
Robert Goldberg, director of the Tanner Humanities Center, said it's critical to remember that each death was a murder.
"Life became dust and disappeared in the wind," Goldberg said. "A people were denied their humanity and became vermin, rodents to be destroyed."
Goldberg said as survivors pass away, it's critical that the memory live on. It's not only history, he said, because human atrocity continues around the globe in areas such as Darfur and Cambodia. It's up to the younger generation to stop future genocides.
"Thoughts must become words and words must become deeds," he said. "There will be a next time. Will you take up the burden of history? If not, what we do today will have no meaning."
E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com
Recent comments
When I read all of your comments, I just have to shake my head and...
LOODIE | May 2, 2008 at 3:17 p.m.
We should all pause to remember those who perished in the Holocaust...
Lest We Forget | May 2, 2008 at 2:33 p.m.
Anon 10:53,
Your reply to Bono2 is fantastic. It's too...
I'm Not Bono2 | May 2, 2008 at 11:33 a.m.
