By Jennifer Hudson
Daily Bruin Contributor
Hindi Rothbart, a Holocaust survivor, came to UCLA Tuesday to
share her experiences for Holocaust Remembrance Day, though she
soon realized that a day was not enough.
“I would need days and months to tell you what we went
through,” said Rothbart, who was at Auschwitz from May 1944
until May 1945.
About 50 students and community members gathered at noon Tuesday
in Meyerhoff Park to remember the Holocaust and denounce
indifference.
“This is not a thank you time. This is a time to feel
pain. It’s mourning,” said Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller,
director of UCLA Hillel Jewish Students Center.
At the memorial service, sponsored by Hillel, the University
Religious Conference and the Undergraduate Students Association
Council, students read interpretations of the Holocaust written in
prose and poetry along with prayers said for those who died. Six
candles were lit in remembrance of the six million Jews who
perished in concentration camps.
Rothbart said her experiences during the Holocaust inspired her
to teach other people about the tragedy.
“The reason I’m surviving fairly normally is because
I can talk about it,” she said.
When a student asked what she was able to do to survive,
Rothbart said, “I am a very positive person.”
Rothbart also recommended the book “Man’s Search for
Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, another survivor of Auschwitz and
a psychiatrist. She said the book is something she now uses to help
her get through difficult times in her life.
Mariana Roytman, member of Hillel and Holocaust Remembrance Day
chairwoman, lit the sixth and final candle at the commemoration
event because this is her last year organizing it.
Roytman has been the driving force behind UCLA’s Holocaust
Remembrance Day for the past four years.
She said she was encouraged to continue the tradition when she
went to Europe and visited the concentration camps during her
senior year of high school.
“While I was standing at Auschwitz, I made a promise to
myself to remember this for the rest of my life,” she
said.
Both sets of her grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and
several members of her extended family were killed.
“It’s been a part of every day of my life,”
she said.
In addition to the memorial service at noon, “A Modern Day
Artistic Response to the Holocaust” was held at 7 p.m. in
Kerckhoff Hall. Stories, poetry and a slide presentation were
shared, as well as students’ impressions from their own
visits to concentration camps. Jenni Alpert, a UCLA folk singer
also performed.
The Remembrance Day is marked as 27 Nissan on the Jewish
calendar, but it changes every year on the secular calendar.
Roytman said that in marking this day she wants people to
remember “that we should never forget and that there is
always someone out there that needs help.”
She said while she would never dwarf the gravity of the
Holocaust by comparing it to any other genocide, she hopes people
will remember it and think of others in the world who are
suffering, instead of ignoring injustice that does not affect them
personally.