A ceremony to honor the victims of the Holocaust was held at the Jewish Community Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The event, which took place on Sunday (May 5), was attended by dozens of community members who gathered to remember the six million Jews who died during World War II.
The ceremony featured a speech by a third-generation Holocaust survivor, Rachel Smithers. 'To me, this is wound in my DNA. Two of my grandparents were survivors and my father was born as the son of survivors in Europe and emigrated to the United States as a toddler. So it’s very much my family legacy to carry this on and to honor my grandparents and my late father by speaking about the history so that it’s not forgotten,' Smithers said during the event.
The gathering also included calls for schools to improve education about the Holocaust. This event comes just days after a swastika and racial slurs were found spray-painted on a vacant city-owned building in Harrisburg. In response to the incident, Mayor Wanda R.D. Williams urged the city to unite against hate.