BALTIMORE (WBFF) — As Jewish communities marked Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, members of Baltimore’s Jewish community and others gathered Monday at Beth Tfiloh Congregation in Pikesville to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and those who resisted Nazi persecution.
The event featured an evening of cinema centered on a documentary about Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who died in 2016. The film, titled “Elie Wiesel, Soul on Fire,” was released this past October and was shown in a free screening that congregants described as timely.
“Who better to learn from than the person, the man, who taught us, who taught the world about what, what happened,” said Rabbi Chai Posner, senior rabbi at Beth Tfiloh Congregation.
Judy Poltilove, who attended the screening, said, “We need to let people know what our people went through and what today they’re still going through with all the anti-Seitisim that’s going across our country.”
Stuart Poltilove, who also attended, said, “I feel that we have a responsibility to combat anti-Semitism the best way we can. And one of the best ways is to hear what he went through and help the methods he used to try to overcome it.”
Elisha Wiesel, identified as an invited guest, presented the documentary. Ahead of the screening, he spoke about why he believes his father’s words remain relevant, citing current events including the Hamas Oct. 7 attack against Israel.
“Killing hundreds, kidnapping hundreds. It was the worst day since the Holocaust of violence against Jewish people around the world,” Elisha Wiesel said.
Asked what his father would say about the current U.S./Israel war against Iran, Elisha Wiesel said, “To say, what would my father would have said, we don’t know.”
He added, “My father, my father was politically active now he was never politically active in the sense of he wasn’t a registered democrat and he wasn’t a registered republican. My father made friends on both sides of the aisle.”
Elisha Wiesel also said, “So, it’s a long, complicated topic. But my father was on record in general as being very distrustful of the Islamic regime in Iran.”
During the event, a clip from Wiesel was also played: “He had grace, he had compassion.”
Elisha Wiesel said the documentary focuses on his father’s journey and resilience. “It tells a narrative arc of someone who went through the world’s most unbelievable tragedy and yet was able to piece his life back together, find a purpose, find a way forward to imagine a world where he would raise his own family,” he said.
Local Story
