First-grader Lilly Shevitz, 7, counts glass blocks full of six million beverage can flip-tabs that represent the six million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust as she attends a Day of Remembrance Ceremony on Thursday, April 12, 2018, at Community Day School in her neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. The memorial, “Keeping Tabs,” is shaped like the Star of David and took 18 years to complete. The event was part of ceremonies nationwide marking Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. Students welcomed members of the community for music, prayer, and the lighting of remembrance candles by local Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as a flag-lowering ceremony. (Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette)Rup Pokharel, a refugee from Bhutan who is now service co-ordinator for Jewish Family and Community Services, speaks to those assembled at the Community Day School’s Day of Remembrance Ceremony on Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the school in Squirrel Hill. “We are uniting together and we are initiating the process to build a single platform throughout the country,” said Pokharel of the U.S. Bhutanese community, which he said is taking inspiration from the way the Jewish community has preserved their own culture and history. “We have started collecting the stories of our seniors, like my mother… We want to archive our stories for daughters like mine.” The event was part of ceremonies nationwide marking Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. Students welcomed members of the community for music, prayer, and the lighting of remembrance candles by local Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as a flag-lowering ceremony. (Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette)From left to right, seventh-graders Alex Polito, Aaron Grant, Yishai Selig, Luke Glickman, and Ivry Sasson listen to their classmates share letters from the Holocaust at the Community Day School’s Day of Remembrance Ceremony on Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the school in Squirrel Hill. The event was part of ceremonies nationwide marking Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. Students welcomed members of the community for music, prayer, and the lighting of remembrance candles by local Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as a flag-lowering ceremony. (Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette)Eighth-graders sing behind memorial candles as the Israeli flag is lowered at the Holocaust at the Community Day School’s Day of Remembrance Ceremony on Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the school in Squirrel Hill. “For me, it was really important to just honor people,” said student Shuli Dernis, center left, 14, of Squirrel Hill, who volunteered to be a part of the ceremony and share stories from Rwandan, Bhutanese, and Jewish genocide. “It’s important to not forget… It was the same hate but just disguised in different ways.” (Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette)Dara Morgan Brown, left, reads a story written by her grandfather Simon Gelernter, a Holocaust survivor, as her grandmother Francine Gelernter, also a Holocaust survivor, and her cousin Max Aaron Gelernter stand with her during a Holocaust Remembrance Day program Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Francine lit one of the six candles that honored the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust. Additional candles honored Holocaust liberators, non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazi extermination, World War II veterans and local survivors. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)The Jewish community gathers for a Holocaust Remembrance Day program Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)Yarden Noymark, 14, left, and Shulamit Bastacky, a Holocaust survivor, hold hands as they take part in the Holocaust Remembrance Day program Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Noymark, a student from Israel, won second place in the Walman International Arts and Writing competition at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. She came from Israel to meet the local winners in the competition. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)Cantor Moshe Taube of Squirrel Hill before the start of the Holocaust Remembrance Day program Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Rev. Taube, a Holocaust survivor who was on Schindler’s list, opened the program singing “Ani Ma-amin,” a Hebrew song sang by some of the first Jewish victims of the Nazis in Warsaw, Lublin, Lodz and Bialystak. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)From left Yarden Noymark, 14, Shulamit Bastacky, a Holocaust survivor, and Olivia Hibel sing along with the Partisan song at the end of the Holocaust Remembrance Day program Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Hibel, whose Hebrew name means Lioness, and represents letters of the names of relatives that perished in the Holocaust. Noymark, a student from Israel, won second place in the Walman International Arts and Writing competition at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. She came from Israel to meet the local winners in the competition. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)Holocaust survivors and their families stand during the Kaddish during a Holocaust Remembrance Day program Thursday, April 12, 2018, at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Six candles were lit , by survivors or their relatives to honor the six million killed during the Holocaust. Four more candles were lit honored Holocaust liberators, non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazi extermination, World War II veterans and local survivors. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)
By 
