Survivor to speak at Bayonne Holocaust program
Holocaust survivor Martin Bloch will speak at Bayonne’s annual Holocaust Remembrance service on May 6, at 6 p.m., in the Dorothy Harrington City Council Chambers at 630 Avenue C. The service is sponsored by the UJA Federation of Bayonne and the Bayonne Interfaith Clergy. It is hosted by the city of Bayonne, and the city’s Mayor Jimmy Davis is its honorary chair.
Mr. Bloch’s story is dramatic Early in the war, the Nazis murdered Mr. Bloch’s father, and he, his mother, and his brother were forced into a ghetto in Belarus. They escaped to the forest, living first with non-Jews and then with the Bielski Brothers, a Jewish partisan group. The 2008 feature film “Defiance,” which starred Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, was based on the wartime activities of the Bielski Brothers. In 1952, after seven years in a DP camp, Mr. Bloch emigrated to the United States.
Mayor Davis and other elected officials will speak and present proclamations, resolutions, and citations. There will be a candle-lighting; clergy from various faiths will offer prayers and reflections and members of Bayonne’s veterans’ groups will carry the colors and the banners of their posts. Bayonne students will participate in the processional and the Bayonne High School-Bees Knees choral group will sing the Jewish Partisan Song from World War II. Cantorial singers Hara L. Benjamin-Garritano and Alan Gordon Smulen will lead Hatikvah and the Star-Spangled Banner. Miguel Garcia will be the accompanist.
The winners of Bayonne High School’s contest for writing about the Holocaust will read from the winning entries and receive an award sponsored by the Preminger and Epstein families. Helene Kessel Nagiar and Joseph E. Ryan are the co-chairs.
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