Although the Holocaust ended 76 years ago with the Allied liberation of Nazi Germany concentration camps where around 6 million Jews were killed, the Yom HaShoah Holocaust Memorial program on Wednesday at Congregation Emanu-El Israel in Greensburg is another opportunity to remind people anti-Semitism did not die in the ruins left behind by the Nazis.

“It was really upsetting. Sadly, it is even more important to remember now,” said James Paharik, director of Seton Hill’s National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, which is co-sponsoring the Yom HaShoah program along with Congregation Emanu-El Israel.

Paharik pointed to the anti-Semitism in the 2018 massacre of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood and in the “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirt worn inside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 invasion by those seeking to overturn the election results.

The virtual program will be conducted at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the synagogue on North Main Street. Only those participating in the hourlong program will be permitted inside the sanctuary, Rabbi Lenny Sarko of Congregation Emanu-El Israel said. The program was canceled last year because of pandemic-related restrictions and because equipment had not yet been installed to broadcast the program, Sarko said.

Even though Nazi Germany was defeated three-quarters of a century ago, Sarko said it remains important to have a program to remember the Holocaust.

“Since the Holocaust, how many genocides have we had? Apparently, we haven’t learned our lesson,” Sarko said. “We have to have a constant reminder.”

During the program, memorial candles will be lit for the 6 million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe who were killed in the Holocaust. Cantorial selections will be sung, and there will readings from several clergy in the Greensburg, Latrobe, Jeannette and Pittsburgh areas, Sarko said. A violinist will perform a musical interlude, as well, the rabbi said.

The program will honor the memory of the late Shulamit Bastecky, a Holocaust survivor who was an important voice in educating people in the region about the Holocaust, Sarko said.

“She talked about her experience as a child,” being saved as a baby by nuns in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, where she was born, Paharik said.

She and her parents survived the Holocaust, and they eventually relocated to Pittsburgh, where Bastecky was active in talking about her experience.

Those who knew her noted how upset she was over the shooting of innocent people at the Tree of Life synagogue.

“We need to learn from it. It is a reminder for us to keep on educating people to the dangers of anti-Semitism,” Paharik said.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)