(23 Apr 1998) English/Nat
American government officials joined members of the Jewish community in a moving ceremony to commemorate and honour the six (m) million Jews killed during the Holocaust, in Washington, on Thursday.
In an emotional service, survivors of Hitler's darkest days, and their families paid special tribute to the courage and strength to the children of the Holocaust - those who survived and those who didn't.
The formal surrounds of the Capitol's Rotunda was the setting for this year's Holocaust Remembrance Day in the United States.
Flags of the American army divisions who liberated Nazi camps were presented during the ceremony in a touching tribute to the U-S soldiers who helped free thousands of Jews from the ugly grip of Nazi Germany.
The chairman of the Days of Remembrance Committee, Benjamin Meed, who worked as a slave labourer for the Nazis, honoured those who died.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We gather together again to remember those who we loved and lost in the pit of hell - the Holocaust."
SUPER CAPTION: Benjamin Meed, US Holocaust Memorial Council
The memorial service paid special tribute to the children who were caught in the grip of Hitler's reign of terror.
The courage and strength of those who lived and died were honoured.
As diaries written by children of the Holocaust were read to the crowd, candles were lit in their memory.
Student Josef Hapli read an excerpt from Yitzak Rudachevski's diary from Vilnius, Lithuania - when the boy's family were forced into a ghetto by the Nazis.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We carried the bundles to the courtyard - suddenly everything around me weeps, everything weeps. Yitzak kept his diary until 1943, he was deported when the ghetto was liquidated and later perished."
SUPER CAPTION: Josef Hapli, Student
Rebecca Levy recited from the diary of Eva Ginzova, a girl in Czechoslovakia's Terezin ghetto, who had already lost her parents when she watched her older brother and a friend get sent to Auschwitz.
For survivor, Alec Mutz, to be included in Thursday's ceremony was especially meaningful.
Heads were bowed as the Prayer for the Dead was sung.
UPSOUND: As El Moleh Rachamim is being sung
Fifty-three years ago a 14-year-old boy was rescued by American troops while on a death march from Flossenburg.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Today happens to be the day that I was liberated from a concentration camp - 53 years ago, April 23rd around nine in the morning and I weighed in at 67 pounds when I got picked up off the road."
SUPER CAPTION: Alec Mutz, Holocaust Survivor
Alec Mutz, who now lives in Rochester, New York, still bears the emotional and physical scars of the Holocaust.
He was the only survivor from about four-thousand Jews who lived in his village in Poland.
And while he tries to forget the horrific memories of life in a concentration camp, he says he will never forget those who gave him back his freedom.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"It was a great honour to be here, to be amongst people that have given their life for me. They have liberated me."
SUPER CAPTION: Alec Mutz, Holocaust Survivor
This service is one of many ceremonies held throughout the world on Thursday, to commemorate those who perished at the hands of the Nazis.
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