Friday, November 6, 2026
“In the morning, I went to the window. The entire street was covered with stars and crystals. It was beautiful, but I didn’t know what it really was,” Lawrence resident Susan Gelfand said, recalling her early life growing up in Berlin. “It was the day when everybody came and broke the windows of homes and stores.”
During the Nov. 1 Kristallnacht Commemoration at City Hall, Gelfand, now 96, spoke about her life as an eight-year-old living through the “Night of Broken Glass” in her grandmother’s Berlin home. Gelfand had fled Szczecin, Poland with her mother and brother, after her father was taken prisoner.
More than 250 attendees filled the 6th floor meeting room to take part in the annual ceremony, presented by The Holocaust Committee of Long Island. During Kristallnacht — a coordinated series of attacks across Nazi Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland in Nov. 1938 — Nazi soldiers vandalized and looted Jewish-owned businesses and homes, and burned more than 1,400 synagogues.
Every year since 1987, Long Beach has hosted a remembrance ceremony, with the installation of Kennedy Plaza’s Holocaust memorial monument in the inaugural year. Every ceremony has featured a keynote speaker. Last year, Warren Vegh, spoke. Vegh’s late father, Maurice, was a taken to Auschwitz at age 13 and was later marched to Buchenwald before being liberated.
This year, Alexa Roth was the featured speaker. Roth, 18, is a Stony Brook University freshman representing an upcoming generation of young adults deeply connected to their Jewish faith, through her work as president of her local CTeen chapter and travel for international Shabbatons. “To other young Jewish people who may be struggling to understand their identity or find the confidence to speak up, I want them to know they are not alone,” Roth said. “We come from generations of people who survived unimaginable hardships and still found ways to rebuild their lives, families and communities. We carry their stories with us and we have a responsibility to keep those stories alive.”
Rabbi Benny Berlin, of BACH Jewish Center, offered an invocation prayer during the ceremony, reminding the audience of the enduring impact of Kristallnacht — stretching nearly 90 years. Berlin emphasized that the event’s repeated call to “never forget” should be an act of remembrance as well as a call to action.
“When you see antisemitism rear its head, you say, ‘I’m not going to be silent. I’m going to stand up and say it’s wrong,’” Berlin explained. “When you see hatred, you nip it in the bud right there at the beginning to make sure it doesn’t metastasize. That, to me, is the message.”
State Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, Assemblyman Ari Brown, City Council President Brendan Finn, City Manager Daniel Creighton and former longtime Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg also addressed attendees to share their thoughts on the solemn day.
The day concluded with the reading of El Malai Rachamim — a memorial prayer for the deceased. Shortly before the prayer, Vegh continued a tradition his father had maintained annually with a public reading of a Holocaust remembrance pledge.
The earliest form of the Holocaust remembrance pledge began during a 1945 gathering of survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp — where Maurice Vegh was held. Across the years, the pledge was broadened to be more inclusive and applicable to all people. Vegh invited attendees to join hands throughout the room and repeat the pledge responsively:
“I pledge never to forget the Holocaust; the six million Jews, one and a half million children and millions of Christians who perished. I pledge that their sacrifices shall not have been vain. That their lives shall have a meaning because I remember. I pledge to teach my children to never forget the Holocaust. Never. Never. Never. I pledge that the Holocaust shall never happen again. So help me God, creator of all life. Amen.”
