Monday, May 6, is Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s observed on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which lasted more than a month in German-occupied Poland in 1943.
The day is observed annually on the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar.
Around 100 Connecticut lawmakers, religious leaders and community members gathered in the Senate chamber for the state’s 42nd Holocaust Commemoration on Friday. The event also included remarks from a survivor — Endre (Andy) Sarkany, born in Hungary in 1936.
Sarkasny grew up in the Budapest ghetto, living in Hungary through the German occupation and the Soviet regime. On Friday, he recounted his experiences to the crowd at the capitol.
“In Hungary, in April of 1944, the Hungarian government issued a law restricting Jewish movement completely. We were required to wear the Jewish star on our clothes to identify who we were. So if anybody leaves the home, it designated who they are. It was devastating,” Sarkasny said.
He told the crowd on Friday that, more than 70 years later, he could not believe what he saw during a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville — and what he’s seen since.
“They're marching, demonstrating, and saying the same slogans, which I have heard as a seven-year-old,” Sarkasny said. “It's hard to believe that we human beings never really learn.”
Reports of antisemitism in Connecticut more than doubled in the last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The event also featured speeches from Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and songs and prayer from Jewish leaders from across the state.
Lamont read a widely quoted passage from Martin Niemöller, a German pastor.
“They came for the socialists, but I wasn't a socialist, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I wasn't a trade unionist. So I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Jews. And I wasn't a Jew, and I didn't speak up. And then they came for me. And there was nobody left to speak up for me,” Lamont read.
