Remembering the Holocaust
NSW Labor MP and NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel, Mr Walt Secord attended the annual Yom Hashoah Rookwood Memorial Service to commemorate the six million Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust.
Sydney Jewish Museum president Gus Lehrer and Walt Secord
“Surrounded by Holocaust survivors and their descendants and rabbis and communal leaders, it was solemn event and it was a privilege to attend,” Mr Secord said.
Mr Secord paid tribute to the participants including Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission, Mr Meir Itzchaki; Sydney Jewish Museum president Professor Gus Lehrer; Daniel Symonds who spoke in Yiddish; NSW Jewish Board of Deputies executive director, Mr Vic Ahadeff and communal leader Mr Michael Jaku as well as Mr Len Mahemoff with “his beautiful bass voice” who led the memorial prayers.
In January, Mr Secord visited Auschwitz-Birkeneau and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on a personal study tour.
Mr Secord said he had also attended the Rookwood services when he was a reporter at the Australian Jewish News in the early 1990s.
