Memories of Holocaust stir strong emotions

The Jews who cried out exuberantly as they were freed from the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps.

The American liberators who tried to fathom the unfathomable on that day in 1945.

Telling their story is telling our story.

As an honorary candlelighter at an April 23 Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony in Oklahoma City, I was given a front-row seat to hear each word that formed the tales of sorrow, joy, loss and restoration.

I concentrated on the meaning behind the ceremony, the phrases that were used, the gestures that were made, to convey the Yom HaShoah message to our spot of the world.

I spoke to several World War II veterans who vividly recalled the horrors of what they saw as if it were only yesterday that they first glimpsed the emaciated Jews found in the concentration camps.

I saw that tears flowed from the veterans and Holocaust survivors alike more than once during the ceremony.

This ceremony allowed the two groups to come together as they did during those moments of liberation in 1945. They joined together with the community as one assembly of humanity as we learned that their story is indeed our story.

Most faith traditions adhere to the belief that when a brother is ailing, one gives him aid. The biblical book of Romans says to "rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.

I came away with a greater understanding of what Edie Roodman was trying to explain to me days before the ceremony. Roodman, executive director of the ceremony's sponsor, the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City, told me that the significance of the community candlelighters can be found in the Jewish phrase tikkun olam which means "repair the world in Hebrew.

I had been apprehensive about sharing in as opposed to covering Yom Hashoah, but Roodman said the community candlelighters such as myself were, in fact, selected because the ceremony committee felt each had helped in some way to convey the principle of tikkun olam as it relates to the Holocaust.

"We look at the ways they also repair our world, she said.

"Every spark makes a difference in the fire that burns brighter.

The "fire in this instance is the commitment to understanding the events of the Holocaust and helping others to comprehend what took place when one group of people tried to exterminate another group of the human race.

Roodman said first lady Kim Henry was selected as a community candlelighter because of her visit to the Holocaust Museum in Israel. Brian Hearn, Oklahoma City Museum of Art film curator, was chosen for his work in bringing films directly related to the Holocaust to the metro area. Roodman said Larry Nichols, chief executive of Devon Energy, was selected because he was one of the first corporate representatives to respond to the need for sponsors of an exhibit about Nazi persecution of homosexuals.

She said I was chosen because of the stories I have written on the Holocaust.

Everyone who lit a candle came together out of sense of oneness, a willingness to share in this ceremony of remembrance for the millions of Holocaust victims whose life stories were tragically ended and those survivors who have been silenced by death.

I can't emphasize it enough: Their story is our story.

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