Montreal's Jewish community remembers victims for Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day
On Sunday night, Jewish communities recognize Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, where six candles are lit at a ceremony at the Montreal Holocaust Museum, one for every million Jews killed during the Holocaust.
Amid a rising tide of anti-Semitism and conflict in the Middle East, one survivor from Montreal says now is the time for dialogue and understanding.
Rachel Kruger Gropper said she's filled with a sense of loss and determination as she stood beneath the eternal flame at the museum.
"Around us you see the names of all the concentration camps," she told CTV News. "Some I was connected to. Some I was not. All of them were families and children. This room is my pause and this light must not go out."
At the outset of the Second World War, Gropper's parents fled Poland, escaping Nazi persecution, only to be arrested by the Soviet Union army and sent to a slave labour camp in the Ural Mountains.
"I was born in a coal mine in Siberia," said Gropper. "And my mother was assured that there wasn't the remotest possibility that I would survive. She was determined to prove that a less than two-pound baby could survive."
The conditions were horrific, and many did not survive the mines.
Her family did, however, and came to Canada after the war.
"This country means a tremendous amount to me as I remember where we came from, and as I memorialize, never to forget, I am caught in today's news, and I can't help but feel upset, concerned," she said.
Since Oct. 7, Montreal police (SPVM) have reported 154 hate crimes and 55 incidents directed at the Jewish community.
At McGill University, the pro-Palestinian encampment has been peaceful for the most part, but earlier this week, video footage emerged of some demonstrators telling Jewish students to "go back to Europe."
For Holocaust Museum president Jacques Saada, the slogan shows a lack of understanding and compassion.
"There is a difference between a noble cause, which is the Palestinian cause and what's happening and this statement that we hear," said Saada. "The Shoah is not a theory. It's not something which we talk about in a vacuum. It is 6 million people who lost their lives, and it's not the statistics and the statistics only. It is real people with real hopes, real aspirations, real pains. It was people like you and me. And these people have been eliminated just because they were Jewish."
Now in her 80s, Gropper devotes much of her time to telling her family's story, fostering understanding through her work at the Holocaust Museum.
"I want us to be able to live together," she said. "I am not interested in hate and my only tools as an educator of a lifetime, my only tool is education."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Trump confronts repeated boos during raucous Libertarian convention speech
Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing Saturday night’s Libertarian Party National Convention.
This type of screen time has the worst effect on kids: experts
According to some experts, there is one type of screen time that is continuously excessive, and it's having a severe effect on our children.
Family of toddler found dead at small-town Ont. daycare no closer to answers after year of investigation
A year has passed since two-year-old Vienna Irwin was found on the property of a home-based daycare in small-town Ontario, but her family says they are no closer to answers of what happened that day.
Grayson Murray, two-time PGA Tour winner, dead at 30
Two-time PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray died Saturday morning at age 30, one day after he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial.
Humboldt Broncos crash victims and families react to decision to deport truck driver
The family of one of the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018 says they are 'thankful' for a decision by a Calgary immigration board to deport the driver of the truck involved.
Fatal plane crash reported near Squamish, B.C.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has confirmed it is working with local Mounties and the BC Coroners Service after a plane crash near Squamish, B.C. Friday night.
'God forgives but we don’t': Loud outburst from stabbing victim’s family during sentencing hearing
An emotional outburst in a London, Ont. courtroom Friday disrupted the sentencing hearing of a woman who pleaded guilty for her part in the death of 29-year-old Mohammed Abdallah.
Three dead after vehicle plunged down a 100-foot embankment in Shediac, N.B.
Three people have died after a vehicle veered off the road in Shediac N.B., Friday morning.
Appeal denied for Edmonton soldier accused of trying to kill her 3 children
An Edmonton woman found guilty of trying to kill her three children has been denied an appeal.