On
Monday the University commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day and the start of
Genocide Awareness Week with a memorial service and guest speaker in the Marvin
Center. The event was hosted by GW
Hillel and gave guests the opportunity to hear the story of Holocaust survivor
Edith Pick Lowy.
Before
Lowy told her story, electric votive candles were handed out to each of the
guests. Individuals were invited up to the front of the room to participate in
candle lighting, including relatives or descendants of Holocaust survivors. A
moment of silence was then taken, and the rest of the remembrance proceeded in
the form of a traditional Jewish memorial service.
After
the service Lowy was introduced and spoke about her experiences as a young
child in Poland, a place that saw some of the worst atrocities of the
Holocaust. She showed the audience the actual uniform dress that she was forced
to wear during the time that she spent in Poland’s labor-concentration camps.
Lowy talked about how growing up her rights were slowly stripped away. She and
her family were prevented from leaving their community, starting at age ten she
had to wear a starred armband identifying her as Jewish, and eventually she
couldn’t even attend school.
By
the time Lowy was thirteen, her mother had been deported and executed, and she
and her father were sent to a Polish labor-concentration camp. Lowy’s little
brother, Erik, had also been executed by this time, and Lowy’s father was
required to bury him. Although life was terrible in conditions that brought on
severe hunger, Lowy and her father supported each other. Lowy talked about her
father’s many sacrifices for her—at one time receiving a severe beating just for
trying to take a carrot from the kitchen garbage so he could give it to her.
Despite
the challenges they faced, Lowy and her father both survived.
Following Lowy’s story, the memorial service closed with prayer.
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