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West Park Service to be held for VE Day
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies in the Second World War and the liberation of the infamous concentration camps. Every year since the war ended, the South African Jewish Ex-Service League has held an Act of Homage and Memorial Service to honour and remember those Jewish South African soldiers who died in the line of duty, not only during the Second World War, but in the preceding First World War and in the South West Africa-Angola border region during the time of conscription.
DAVID SAKS
Photograph: Ilan Ossendryver
The League also remembers and honours those Jewish South Africans who laid down their lives for Israel in the numerous Israeli conflicts.
To mark the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE Day), a special memorial service will be held under the auspices of the League at the SA National Jewish War Memorial at the West Park Jewish Military Section Cemetery, Johannesburg.
All members of the community are therefore urged to attend, not least because this will almost certainly be the last significant anniversary where it will be possible to pay tribute to remaining Jewish community members who took part in the defeat of Nazism.
The service will take place on Sunday, September 20, at 10:00 for 10:30. Among the prominent speakers participating are Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein. There will be a parade of ex-servicemen and -women and members from other regimental and military organisations will parade their standards. Learners from the Jewish day schools and Jewish youth movements have also been invited as special participants as they will hopefully remember the fallen when the present ex-servicemen are called to Higher Service.
The SA National Jewish War Memorial was unveiled on September 19 1993, and the annual memorial service has been held there since then. It comprises plaques with the names of Jewish soldiers who died during the two world wars, in defence of South Africa and the Israeli wars and also in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
There is also a plaque to Unknown Soldiers whose names may have been forgotten on the various plaques. The design of the memorial is a wall to represent the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem.
Enquiries regarding the 70th anniversary service can be made to the Johannesburg and Reef branch chairman of the SA Jewish Ex-Service League: Lt Col William Bergman (Rtd) at (011) 346-0395.