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Alexandria honored the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust at its 36th annual Days of Remembrance ceremony on April 24 in Market Square.

The gathering came 80 years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Rabbi Steven Rein of Agudas Achim Congregation urged attendees to remember both the scale of the tragedy and the heroism shown during one of history’s darkest periods.

State Sen. Adam Ebbin joined elected officials and dignitaries in lighting six candles, one for each million Jewish victims of the genocide carried out under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

The candles were held by a 54-inch, solid-brass candelabrum donated to Alexandria by Holocaust survivor Charlene Schiff and her husband, Brig. Gen. Edwin Schiff. The late couple gave it in memory of Schiff’s parents, sister and others killed in the Holocaust.

Mayor Alyia Gaskins said the ceremony allows the community to remember the victims while renewing its commitment to freedom and human dignity.

“We come together as a community because we want to remember, we want to recognize and we want to do the important work of preserving our freedom, promoting human dignity and confronting hate wherever and whenever it occurs,” Gaskins said.

Rabbi David Spinrad of Beth El Hebrew Congregation recounted the experience of Hugo Gryn, who survived the Holocaust and later became a prominent rabbi. While imprisoned in a concentration camp, Gryn watched his father hold on to hope as the family secretly observed Hanukkah.

Spinrad said Gryn came to understand that hope must endure even amid profound tragedy. He also warned that the Holocaust demonstrated the extremes of human behavior, from the actions of its perpetrators to the resilience of victims who survived, as well as the devastating consequences of unchecked antisemitism and racism.

Sheriff Sean Casey, Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter and the Hon. Greg Parks also participated. Richard Breitman, a distinguished professor emeritus at American University, served as the guest speaker.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum leads the nationwide, weeklong Days of Remembrance commemoration under a congressional mandate.

Rein closed by emphasizing the moral weight of everyday decisions.

“We are all faced with daily choices as individuals, as families and as citizens,” he said. “This ability to exercise our own free will is not just the measure of our humanity; it is the very thing that makes life worth living.”