In this afternoon event coinciding with similar events throughout the U.S., Berkeley City officials join musicians, poets, authors, and the public in a special ceremony to remember the Holocaust.

Cantor Sharon Bernstein opens the event with bassist Stuart Brotman and spoken word remembrances from poet Robert Alter, Susan Greenwald, and Baruch Nutovic, a candle lighting ceremony for Holocaust survivors, and speeches by Kriss Worthington and other members of the Berkeley City Council.

Sharon Bernstein, a pianist, singer, and teacher of Yiddish song, has performed in Israel, Europe, and New York. Stuart Brotman has been playing cello, tuba, and cymbalom for a decade with the acclaimed Brave Old World ensemble; his other recording credits include Canned Heat, The Klezmorim, Ry Cooder, and Geoff and Maria Muldaur. An eminent professor of comparative literature and Hebrew language at U.C. Berkeley, Robert Alter, Ph.D., is also a critically lauded Hebrew translator. Susan Greenwald, born in what is now the Ukraine, survived the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Bierkenau and labor camp of Unterlüss during the height of the Holocaust; for the ceremony, she gives a brief statement on her experience and addresses the theme, "Stories of Freedom: What you do matters."