2023
Helga Melmed
Survivor Helga Melmed shared her testimony with our community — the morning that began Holocaust Education Week in Venice.
While there are still witnesses, Venice will hear them.
Every year, as the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Chabad of Venice brings a living witness to our community. Not a documentary. Not a lecture about history. A person who was there — telling their own story, in their own voice, to a hall filled with neighbors, students, and grandchildren.
We do this because the window is closing. The youngest survivors are now in their late eighties and nineties, and the generation that can say “I remember” will soon be gone. Whoever hears a witness becomes a witness — and we intend for this community to carry that testimony forward.
Our commitment doesn't end with one morning a year. Our synagogue is home to a Holocaust Torah — and every Simchat Torah, it dances again.
“Whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness.”
Survivor Helga Melmed shared her testimony with our community — the morning that began Holocaust Education Week in Venice.
Auschwitz survivor Irene Zisblatt, author of “The Fifth Diamond,” told her story to a packed hall on February 15, 2024.
At 102 years old, Auschwitz survivor Joseph Alexander spoke on February 13, 2025 — more than 650 seats were reserved.
Sora Vigorito, the youngest surviving twin of Auschwitz, addressed our largest gathering yet on February 4, 2026.
We are at work on this year's program now. Leave your details and you'll be the first to know when the speaker is announced — and the first to reserve seats.
