The city of McAllen and Temple Emanuel announced that the second McAllen Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony will be held on Wednesday, April 21 at the McAllen Performing Arts Center, located at 801 Convention Center Boulevard.
The event was announced during a brief news conference Thursday, on what is observed as Holocaust Remembrance Day throughout the United States.
“I think it’s more important than ever to remember the Holocaust as a symbol of how bad it can be and how terrible it can be and unimaginable it can be so that we don’t repeat it, even in the smallest fashion,” McAllen Mayor Jim Darling said during the conference. “For that reason the city of McAllen and Temple Emanuel have joined together to once again host the McAllen Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony.”
The event will be free to the public, and doors will open at 6 p.m.. People of all faiths and ages are invited to attend the event with masks and social distancing in place.
The McAllen Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony will feature a musical performance by Mike Gersten, a history professor at South Texas College, with his wife Meredith Gersten, and Patrick Hopkins, as well as readings and a candle ceremony to honor the millions of victims who were killed during the Holocaust. The ceremony will also feature a display of books and resources about the Holocaust provided by the McAllen Public Library.
“Many of the parents and grandparents of Jewish people here in the Valley and throughout the world were interned at the extermination camps of the Holocaust,” Rabbi Nathan Farb of Temple Emanuel said during the conference. “A few of them survived. Many did not. The parents and grandparents of many brave Americans here in the Valley and throughout the country served valiantly and fought against the Nazis in World War II. This is not ancient history. It is part of the history of our families and our neighbors. Unfortunately it is a history that is being forgotten”
Farb recognized April 8 as Yom HaShoah, a day in which the Jewish community remember the 6 million Jews who died during the Holocaust. He said that the Jewish community recognizes similar rhetoric being used against other minority groups in the present day.
“On April 21, neighbors will stand here side by side in honor and memory of the 6 million lives taken simply because they were Jewish,” Farb said. “We will stand in solidarity against the rising tide of hatred that leads to stereotypes, to violence, and eventually toward genocide. We will say, ‘Never again.’”
The ceremony will be available to watch on MCN Spectrum 1300 and streamed at https://www.mcallen.net/departments/media/mcn-1300-live, on the McAllen 3-1-1 mobile app, on antenna channel KAZH-LP 57.1 or on the City of McAllen YouTube channel beginning at 6:30 p.m.. For more information, contact Temple Emanuel at (956) 681-1202, or follow the city of McAllen on social media.
