Holocaust remembered in West Hempstead

Six local shuls will join on Sunday, April 7 for a commitment to remembrance on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

This year, the event will take place at the Jewish Community Center of West Hempstead, 711 Dogwood Ave., at 11 a.m.

The guest speaker for the remembrance event will be Elly Berkovits Gross, who, when only 15 years of age, was deported along with her mother and five-year-old brother from a ghetto in Romania to the Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp. The first day at the camp was the last day she ever saw her family.

She survived the camps and is now dedicating her life to keep alive the memory of those who did not survive.

Gross has been featured on 60 Minutes and has served as a plaintiff in the reparations cases against the German industries charged with benefiting from slave labor, forced labor and medical experimentation during World War II.

The event is sponsored by Congregation Beth Israel, the Elmont Jewish Center, Franklin Square Jewish Center, Jewish Community Center of West Hempstead, Malverne Jewish Center and the Valley Stream Jewish Center.