U.S. astronaut records Holocaust remembrance message in space
American astronaut Andrew Feustel recorded a video message aboard the International Space Station commemorating Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In the video, the NASA geophysicist, who is not Jewish, displayed a replica of a drawing titled “Moon Landscape” by Petr Ginz, a Czech teen with Jewish roots who was killed at Auschwitz. Feustel, who received the drawing from Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, noted that the Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon had brought a replica of that drawing with him on board the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.
Ramon and the rest of the crew were killed when the shuttle exploded during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
“May the memories of Petr Ginz, astronaut Ilan Ramon and the six million victims of the Holocaust always remain in our thoughts,” Feustel says in the message, before he floated away inside the space station.
JTA Wire Service
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