The U.S. Military Academy Equal Opportunity Office hosted the 2024 Days of Remembrance Observance on April 18 at the West Point Club’s Grand Ballroom.
This year’s guest speaker was Paula Aspell, who after retiring from a 33-year award-winning career as PBS NOVA’s senior executive producer and director, she founded Leading Edge Productions to make documentaries of scientific, cultural and historical importance.
Aspell recently completed and released a feature documentary about Jewish resistance during the Holocaust entitled “Resistance – They Fought Back.” The documentary has been selected for screening in more than 20 film festivals in the United States and abroad.
Aspell, with event moderator Rick Salomon, who is a board member of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, discussed her documentary and the Jewish resistance against Nazi genocide. To the audience of cadets, staff and faculty, she wanted to destroy the myth that the Jews were sent to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter, but instead they did not go as sheep – but they fought back.
Each year, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum leads the nation in commemorating Days of Remembrance. Days of Remembrance was established by the U.S. Congress to honor the lives of the six million Jewish victims – as well as millions of others killed – and the heroic liberators of the Holocaust. The occasion calls for reflection on, and vigilance against hatred and genocide.
The theme of the observance was “Behind Every Name A Story: The Courageous,” and honored Adolfo Kaminsky, who forged fake documents that helped save more than 10,000 Jewish people. The USMA Library, led by Exhibition Librarian Lisa Gomez, provided a display of books on the Holocaust for attendees to view.
There were also musical numbers performed by the West Point Band and the Jewish Choir.
Excerpt and image taken from https://www.westpoint.edu.
