Congressman Says He and His Generation Symbolize the Failure of the Nazis to Obliterate Jews

Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D. Conn.), the first child of Jewish Holocaust survivors to serve in Congress, told a record crowd of 900 people at the community’s annual Yom Ha-Shoah observance that he and his generation “are a testimony that the Nazi attempt to obliterate the spirit of our people has failed.”

Both Gejdenson’s parents survived the Nazi invasion of Lithuania, their native country, and Gejdenson himself was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1948, three years after the war’s end. They immigrated to America and settled on a small dairy farm in Bozrah, Connecticut, where Gejdenson still lives with his wife Karen and baby daughter Mia.

The Yom Ha’Shoah observance was held at the Emanuel Synagogue in West Hartford and was co-sponsored by the Greater Hartford Jewish Federation and Hartford Jewish Community Center.

Saying that Jews often have been among the first to be persecuted, Gejdenson declared: “As we see prejudice and hatred against others, we must lead the charge to stop it.” The Nazis’ murder of the Jews shows how quickly threats and rhetoric can become a fact, Gejdenson said. “Hitler’s promises in 1939 that seemed ludicrous were real a few years later,” he said. Gejdenson, 33, said he entered politics because “people using the power of government correctly can make a difference.”

In addition to the horror, Gejdenson said it also is important to remember the “courage and hope” displayed during World War II. He told the audience that his father’s life was saved by a Roman Catholic woman, the mother of seven children, who found him on her doorstep. After consulting a priest, the woman hid the elder Gejdenson from the Nazis. By remembering all that went with the Holocaust, Gejdenson said, “We deny Hitler and his cohorts a victory.”

In other Yom Ha’Shoah observances, a community-wide Yom Ha’Shoah interfaith observance was held at Beth Israel Synagogue in Worcester, Mass., which was the culmination of an all-day program organized by the Worcester Jewish Federation’s Community Relations Committee and the Worcester County chapter, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ) in conjunction with numerous other Jewish organizations.

In stressing the importance of the commerorative event, the first of its kind held in Worcester, Federation president Morton Siegel said: “Together with our Christian brothers and sisters we mourn not only the loss of six million Jews but also the millions of men and women of diverse faiths who perished at the hands of the Nazis.”

John Curran, chairman of the board of the Worcester chapter of the NCCJ, declared that to guard against another Holocaust “there must be an ongoing effort to remind the world of its unique significance in human history. Through this observance, men and women of all faiths here in Worcester can share in this effort.”