Panama City’s Naval Surface Warfare Center hosted a Holocaust remembrance ceremony

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - Several guest speakers and members of the Jewish community were in attendance at a ‘Yom HaShoah’ ceremony Tuesday to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It is a time when the world stops to remember the atrocities of the past and the six million Jews who were slaughtered just because of their race.

But, it’s also a time to honor the heroes who saved lives during the holocaust.

Guest speaker, Dr. Daniel Sternlicht, shared written word, and memories of his late grandfather, who endured the holocaust.

He said Yom-HaShoah is an opportunity for us to be thankful for our freedoms but, also remember the missteps of the past.

”Yom HaShoah is really an opportunity for us all over the world, but especially in the United States,” Sternlicht said. “We live in an area where we take our freedoms very much for granted. It’s a chance to remember the atrocities and the missteps of the past.”

Sternlicht says the Jewish community’s motto is to ‘never forget,’ and ‘never repeat.’

Dr. Ethan Evans spoke about what he saw when he visited concentration camps in Europe and said it’s hard to imagine what six million people had to endure.

“Absolutely jarring,” Evans said. “To see piles of ash the size of this room...to see fingernail marks on the walls of people asphyxiating...being gassed to death.”

But through kindness and vigilance, Sternlicht said there’s hope in keeping genocides from happening again.

“We must be vigilant, and we must call out intolerance when we see it. And that takes a certain amount of courage,” he said.

Lieutenant Commander Daniel Chester said Yom-HaShoah not only remembers the victims of the Holocaust, but it also honors military veterans.

“We want to remember the significance of the people who suffered,” he said. “But we also want to remember the heroes who stepped up and brought an end to World War II and brought an end to the Holocaust.”

Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated seven days after the end of Passover each year .

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