Holocaust Museum LA commemorates Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with event featuring survivors, speakers

FAIRFAX, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- With anti-Semitic hate crimes on the rise, the Jewish community came together on Sunday at the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles to remember loved ones who perished in the Holocaust.

But also honoring those who survived.

For the first time in four years, the museum held the event in Fairfax. The event had been canceled the past few years due to the pandemic.

Members of the Jewish community were joined by city officials such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against Nazi rule, which is considered the first significant revolt against German occupation in Europe.

Speakers and survivors spoke about the horrors of the Holocaust and maintaining hope, even though six million Jewish people died in the genocide.

"I lived in the Warsaw Ghetto. I lost my parents, two sisters and one brother in the Warsaw Ghetto," said Joseph Alexander, a Holocaust survivor. "But I got out, and then I went to the camp. And I went to 12 camps."

Mayor Bass spoke to the group about the importance of teaching the Holocaust properly and accurately.

"Some people are attempting to erase different parts of history, and for someone to ever, ever, ever dare say that there is some other way to teach about the Holocaust is absolutely unacceptable, and one can never allow that to happen," said Bass.

In all, the event brought together three generations of Holocaust survivors.