People gathered inside the Senate chambers of the Connecticut State Capitol on Friday for the 43rd Annual Holocaust Commemoration ceremony. They remembered the six million Jewish people who died in the Holocaust.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal spoke about the rise in antisemitic acts across the world and remind those attending that horrific acts like the Holocaust can happen anywhere that hate is allowed to survive.
Stream Connecticut News for free, 24/7, wherever you are.
WATCH HERELeon Chameides lived it. He was just four years old when the war broke out and at six fled with his family.
“We fled eastward and the Germans attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, when I was six years old. By the time I was seven, it was clear to my parents that we would not survive unless something drastic was done,” said Chameides, who now lives in West Hartford.
Get top local Connecticut stories delivered to you every morning with the News Headlines newsletter.
SIGN UP Chameides said his father approached an archbishop in the Greek Catholic church and he agreed to hide Chameides and his brother in a monastery. They survived but lost their parents.
Chameides shared his experience with everyone at the ceremony and urged them to learn from the Holocaust.
“How we can apply it perhaps today and how we can find meaning in those experiences for the problems we face today,” said Chameides.
