Westchester Countywide Yom HaShoah Commemoration to Feature Holocaust Survivor
The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center (HHREC) and Westchester Jewish Council (WJC) will host the annual Countywide Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Commemoration Keeping the Memory Alive on Thursday, April 24th from 12 to 1pm at the Garden of Remembrance on 148 Martine Avenue in White Plains, New York. The program will feature a keynote presentation by HHREC Holocaust Survivor Speaker Arlette Baker and a procession of 35 Holocaust Rescued Scrolls. Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins is also scheduled to appear
Keynote Speaker Former Chappaqua Schoolteacher
Arlette Baker was born into an assimilated French-Jewish family and raised in Paris, France. She is a dual citizen who earned graduate degrees in French and Latin at NYU and went on to teach courses in French and Latin in the Chappaqua School District.
At the end of December 1942, her parents, Fernand and Renee Levy, and 4-year-old Arlette were arrested in their apartment by two French Nazis. Arlette’s father was able to bribe the two men, and they let her go with the maid to her grandparents, and this saved her life. Her parents were taken to the Drancy Concentration Camp in the suburbs of Paris and then deported to Auschwitz where they were put to death in February 1943. She writes in her memoir Undaunted that “I survived for a reason. Everything good I did, and I am still doing, was, and is in memory and in honor of my parents.”
Arlette is an active speaker who has been an invited guest at commemorations and other Holocaust education events around the world. In 2024 she appeared at the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris. During this annual ceremony she read the names of her parents and other victims from France who were sent to concentration camps where they were murdered.
“During my visit to the Memorial de la Shoah, I was so moved by teachers bringing their students to read some of the names of the Holocaust victims” said Baker. “I hope to inspire more people, especially the youth who will serve to the lead the way in the future and preserve my story about the Holocaust and many more.”
Arlette was the former Chairperson of the Holocaust Remembrance Committee at her synagogue, Temple Shaaray Tefila in Bedford, NY, where she spearheaded the installation of a Holocaust Memorial. Today, In addition to her appearances as a speaker, she lectures and translates documents on the Holocaust.
The program will be held rain or shine, and admission is free and open to all. For more information contact Millie Jasper at HHREC mjasper@hhrency.org or Pam Goldstein at WJC pam@wjcouncil.org.