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Earlier today, Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca and city councillors joined members of the Jewish community at Vaughan City Hall to mark Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – in solemn remembrance of the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. The ceremony was held in collaboration with Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC).

The commemoration featured powerful remarks from Mayor Del Duca and FSWC President and CEO Michael Levitt, followed by Holocaust survivor Renate Krakauer, who poignantly recounted the life-threatening adversity she and her family experienced in Nazi-occupied Poland. High school student Dalia Balder also spoke movingly, telling of her personal experience with antisemitism at Northview Heights Secondary School in Toronto where she is leading an impactful initiative to educate youth about the Holocaust. Concluding the commemoration, Rabbi Daniel Korobkin recited the Mourner’s Kaddish, honouring all those who perished in the Shoah.

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This year’s event took place against the backdrop of an alarming rise in antisemitism across Canada following the October 7, 2023 massacre by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel.

"This year is the second time we mark Yom HaShoah in the dark shadow of the atrocities of October 7, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust," said Levitt. "Making it even more painful is the global antisemitic onslaught unleashed in the aftermath of October 7, which still rages on... This current reality underscores the need to teach the difficult lessons of the Holocaust, and especially for our young people to learn the horrors that can happen when hate goes unchecked."

Located just north of Toronto, Vaughan is home to a large Jewish community. As its mayor since 2022, Steven Del Duca has consistently spoken out against antisemitism with great conviction, which he did again at today’s event.

"Words are important, but they are no longer enough," Mayor Del Duca stated. "The job is not done when you pick up your phone and you write something eloquent, poetic and heartfelt... We need leaders across every level [of government] to stand up for what is right, to have the moral clarity to recognize that, though eight decades have passed [since the Holocaust], there is too much pain and there is too much anxiety that is undeserved and unfair, that is being perpetrated by too many against our Jewish neighbours. It has to end."

On Yom HaShoah – and every other day – we remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust simply because they were Jewish. We honour their memory, and the survivors who continue to share their agonizing stories, by standing up against antisemitism and helping to ensure the world never forgets the Holocaust and how it happened.

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