For the third consecutive year High School North’s Concert Choir and String Nonette will perform at the Kristallnacht Commemoration and Remembrance Program at the New Jersey Assembly chamber in the State House in Trenton on Monday, November 13, at 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
The evening is a memorial to Nazi riots in Germany on November 9, 1938. Hundreds of Jewish synagogues, businesses, and homes were ransacked; many Jews were beaten and killed; and 30,”000 Jews were sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht survivor, Fred Heyman, is guest speaker, and will be joined by his daughter Renee, and grandson, Jordan. There will be a candle lighting ceremony for all survivors.
“We became involved in Holocaust events through Debbie Goodkin, a faculty member at North,” says Mary Jacobsen, the choral director. “Her mother, a Holocaust survivor, is connected to the Holocaust Commission.”
This year the Choir will perform the Battle of Jericho, by Moses Hogan, and Nella Fantasia’s “In my Fantasy” featuring the words “In the fantasy I see a world just, All live them in peace and honesty. I dream of spirits that are always free…”
“This event is sponsored by the New Jersey State Commission for Holocaust,” says Jacobsen. “We have also performed at a gala at the War Memorial in the spring gathering Holocaust survivors from the tri-state area.”
The New Jersey Department of Education recognized the link between violence and vandalism and ethnic and racial intolerance and in 1994 mandated that “every board of education shall include instruction on the Holocaust and genocides in an appropriate place in the curriculum of all elementary and secondary school pupils.”
“It is notable that New Jersey is the only state in the country that has mandatory Holocaust Education,” Jacobsen says. “Our state is proud to claim this distinction.”
Kristallnacht Memorial Remembrance Program, Assembly Chambers, State House, Trenton, 609-292-9274. Candle lighting ceremony for all survivors. Music presentations. Public invited. Free. Monday, November 13, 7 p.m.
