Holocaust Victims Honored By Book, Garden
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Victims of the Holocaust -- 6 million Jews killed by Nazis during World War II -- have not been forgotten.
April 8 is Holocaust Remembrance Day.
"This is our Holocaust Memorial Garden," says Rabbi Jessica Locketz of Temple Emanuel, in Mt. Lebanon. "In just a few weeks, we'll be planting many flowers here, each one carefully chosen to represent some aspect of our memorial. There are flowers that are red, quite red, as in blood that was shed. Each flower has been carefully chosen to reflect some aspect of the events, or our remembrance of them."
When bulbs of April become the buds of May, the Holocaust Memorial Garden will be a place of solace for generations to follow.
"This is a new book that's recently been published by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh," says Flora Calgaro of Scott Township. Her father, Morton Cieply, appears in a photograph.
"Around 1929, where he was probably 7-8 years old," his daughter continues. "And his little sister. He had over 200 relatives; at least 200 that perished in the war. So he's the only one that survived."
Morton Cieply passed away in 2004. His daughter says he never talked much about the past.
"I think it was just years and years of bottling it up," she explains. "And it was his survival mode, when he was in the Holocaust. He never really had an opportunity to know how to communicate those feelings, or express them."
Like most of those in the camps, her father had a number burned into his arm.
"I never saw it," Flora Calgaro says. "Never knew his number, because when he was liberated, he took a knife and he carved it out of his skin."
RELATED LINKS
More Local News
More From Dave Crawley
