A Holocaust Remembrance at the Library

It was 1941 when Michael Kessler, 16, and his older sister fled their home in the Ukraine before the advancing German armies. When he and his sister returned to their devastated hometown after the war, 8,000 Jews, including family members, were dead--buried in mass graves.

“In short, the Holocaust is the Tsunami of the worst human evil, and a travesty,” said Dr. Kessler, 89, and now a resident of East Brunswick. “It also is the canary in the coal mine that warns us that lies repeated often enough turn into truths, and hatred if continued nonstop will turn cancerous.”

Dr. Kessler, the author of Shards of War: Fleeing To & From Uzbekistan, will share his story of survival during a Holocaust Remembrance program on Thursday, April 11, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the East Brunswick Public Library. The event also will showcase new additions to the Library’sHolocaust Memorial Collection, established in 1983 with a major contribution from the East Brunswick Jewish Center, Yad Vashem Committee, chaired by East Brunswick resident Karl Kaplan.

The event includes welcoming remarks by Dr. Paul Winkler, Executive Director of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education followed by the keynote address given by Dr. Kessler.  There will be a musical interlude by Dr. Tamara Freeman and closing remarks by Dr. Jacob Solomon Berger, an author of Holocaust history and translator of Yizkor Books.

Dr. Kessler said he is grateful to Library Director MaryEllen Firestone for the opportunity to speak because remembering, sharing knowledge and spreading the truth about the Holocaust is vitally important now and in the future.

“In 1924, Hitler sat in a jail…and wrote his Mein Kampf, his manifesto to exterminate Jews, including through the use of poison gas,” he said. “Then there was a vicious campaign of hate and anger and violence against Jews. For 15 years it went on, during which the west could have responded, but nobody did. That led to the Holocaust as well as World War II. I hear echoes of this hatred today. I hear it when people read to me excerpts from text books for children filled with hatred, I hear it when I read the Internet, I hear it reported in the halls of higher learning, churches and even the UN. I hear it and I shudder.

“That is why I’m so thankful to the library for hosting this program.”