Yom HaShoah, the commemoration of the Holocaust, will take place at the Jewish Cultural Center, 5461 North Terrace Road, on Wednesday, April 27 at 7:00 p.m.
There is no cost to attend. The commemoration will also be available virtually on Zoom by emailing Federation@jewishchattanooga.com.
The program will consist of candle lighting, prayers and Zikaron BaSalon, an Israeli form of storytelling. This year’s story will be about Holocaust survivor Sol Lurie, by his daughter Bea Lurie.
Sol Lurie had a bucolic life in Kovno, Lithuania surrounded by family and friends. At the age of 11, his life was forever changed by anti-Semitic rages by Lithuanians and the invasion of the Nazis. From ages 11-15, Mr. Lurie was in six concentration camps where he faced inhumane conditions, constant fear, and brutal treatment.
After his liberation from the Buchenwald Konzentrationslager he was sent to a Jewish orphanage in France where he eventually was found by family in America and resettled. Mr. Lurie celebrated his 92 birthday and 77th year since liberation on April 11, 2022.
Bea Lurie committed her professional and personal life to public service working as a leader in government agencies and nonprofit organizations. She has also been an entrepreneur of two businesses. Ms. Lurie recently finished co-authoring the biography of her father, Sol Lurie, with Holocaust scholar Dr. and Rabbi Steve Jacobs. The book is tentatively titled Life Must Go On! Sol Lurie, the Kovno Ghetto, and the Murder of Lithuanian Jewry.
The Jewish Cultural Center, funded by the Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga, offers programs, classes and exhibits, social services, and a preschool—all rooted in Jewish values. The facility enables the Jewish community to raise its visibility, foster relationships, and strengthen its identity in the Chattanooga area.
For more information about the Jewish Federation and its offerings visit www.jewishchattanooga.com. The Jewish Cultural Center is located at 5461 North Terrace, the Center and its programs are open to everyone regardless of religious affiliation.
Sol Lurie photo credit: John Pregulman