GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Goodfellow members took time to remember and honor those who were victims of the Holocaust during a special remembrance ceremony at the Event Center on Goodfellow, May 1.
The U.S. Congress established Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust. “Learning from the Holocaust, beyond religious boundaries,” is the national theme for the event this year.
Two candles were lit in honor of the memory for those who were murdered during the Holocaust, those who spoke out, saved or tried to save Jews, and the allied troops who liberated camps.
Command Sgt. Maj. Laurence Payne, 344th Military Intelligence Battalion command sergeant major, gave opening remarks about the event.
“We pause to remember the most tragic events in history, the Holocaust,” said Payne. “We acknowledge that one leader’s utterly distorted idea about this specific group of people and the world led to the violation of basic human values and the execution of millions.”
The 344th MI BN hosted the event along with speakers Capt. Matt Verdugo, executive director of the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission, and President of the Congregation of Beth Israel, Amy Flint, to share their experiences and knowledge regarding the Holocaust.
“Today we also remember that in the face of these unconscionable acts the brave young men and women of the United States military gave their lives to end World War II, to defend the defenseless and eventually liberate concentration camps,” said Payne. “The Holocaust is not some singular event from ancient history that could never happen again. The scar of the Holocaust is burned into the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of survivors and relatives that are still with us today.”
Flint shared her experience of participating in the “March of the Living” during high school.
“In 1990, I was able to go on a Holocaust learning experience called, ‘The March of the Living,’ where we went to Poland for a week and then we went to Israel for a week,” said Flint. “It was actually due to the Holocaust that Israel became a country, when people thought something bad was going to happen they tried to go to countries all over the world and country after country refused them, so after the Holocaust Israel became a country so that Jewish people would always have a place to go if, heaven forbid, anything like that ever happened again.”
Recognizing the past, creates a better future.
“We must vow to never be silent when others are suffering, when others are being persecuted and when the defenseless cry out,” said Payne. “We pledge to never forget, we will always remember.”