A vow “never to forget” the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany against humanity and the Jewish people was taken here tonight by several thousand Jews at a memorial meeting for the 6,000,000 Jews annihilated by the Nazis.
The meeting, hold at the Hotel Astor, was called by the Jewish National Fund of America in conformity with an act of the Israel Parliament proclaiming the 27th day of the Jewish month of Nissan–which this year falls on May 3rd–as a memorial day and asking that it be observed by all Jewish communities throughout the world in commemoration of the Jewish martyrs of the ghettos and concentration camps.
Principal speakers at the meeting included Israel Minister of Interior Moshe Shapiro, Congressman Emanuel Celler, Dr. Harris J. Levine, president of the J.N.F. of America, and Mendel Fischer, J.N.F. executive director. A touching scene was enacted when 14 representatives of 14 Jewish communities that were exterminated by the Hitler fury each stepped up to the platform in single file to light a single candle in a 14 branch candelabra in memory of the destroyed Jewish communities. The audience pledged “to keep green the memory of the martyrs” by planting trees in the “Forest of Six Million” in Israel.
(In Jerusalem, a ceremony commemorating the 6,000,000 Jewish victims of Nazi barbarism was held today at Mt. Zion where an eternal lamp was lighted. Memorial meetings were held in all Israeli towns and in numerous settlements.)
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