Yom HaShoah honours Jewish resistance during holocaust

A ceremony took place for Yom HaShoah Tuesday evening in downtown Hamilton. The day is marked to remember and honour the resistance of Jewish people against the Nazis during the holocaust.

The exhibit inside Hamilton City Hall will be in place for two weeks and then will travel around the city inside different schools. The exhibit lists the names of holocaust survivors, tells their stories, and how they fought back. Hamilton’s Jewish community says these are important stories to tell, especially as the years go on.

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Gustavo Rymberg with the Hamilton Jewish Federation says because holocaust survivors are getting older and fewer are around today, it’s more important than ever to tell their stories. “…I think that it’s important for other generations, to know that the Jewish people during the holocaust, they were not sitting waiting to die. They were fighting back, they were resisting, they were doing the best they can in order to rescue at least one life.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke in Ottawa Tuesday morning, “Hundreds of Jews in Warsaw rose up and fought for their freedom. For 27 days they overcame hunger, exhaustion, depletion, and an extraordinary act of courage, and so many of those who chose hope, who led those uprisings, were young people.”

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