While many around the world mark 81 years since the liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Catholics, fellow Christians and Jews will gather at Toronto’s Darchei Noam Congregation to remember the Shoah not as mere history, but as a continued living call to action to turn past tragedy into present solidarity against hatred in its many forms. 

Taking place Jan. 27, the historical day of liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the International Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony is put on by the Archdiocese of Toronto’s Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations in conjunction with the Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Toronto (CJDT), of which the archdiocese is a founding member. 

Beginning at 7:30 p.m., the ceremony will feature poems and readings from both Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Gospels, recorded Holocaust survivor testimonies and prayer and song throughout the sombre candle-lit synagogue. Held annually, the service has returned in recent times as an anchor event of the CJDT, with Anglican Rev. James Leatch, chair of CJDT, and Rabbi Ryan Leszner of Darchei Noam Congregation jointly leading this year’s commemoration. 

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While the Jewish community often has its own dates of observance, such as Yom HaShoah in the spring, this January event has historically been a Christian commemoration deliberately shared with the Jewish community as part of continued efforts for solidarity. 

This is a sentiment central to the CJDT, one Leszner, as one of its newer members, has already taken to heart as a living testament to solidarity.   

 “CJDT has, for 50 years, created something sacred: a space where we don't just tolerate difference, but truly embrace one another in our full humanity. When we stand together across many faiths to bear witness to the darkest chapters of history, it becomes more than just an act of remembering. We're committing ourselves to building the relationships that actively make our world a more beautiful and understanding place,” he wrote to The Catholic Register. 

For Fr. Luis Melo, director of the ecumenical and interfaith office, the event is an important reminder not only of the systematic murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust itself, but the current relevance and urgency for tolerance in society, made especially vital amid rising anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, hate crimes and general polarization, which increased with the Israel-Hamas war.  

“It’s an opportunity, firstly, to remember and to reflect.  This gathering brings together members of many faiths, generations and communities who share a commitment to memory, justice and peace. As we light candles, hear words of witness and lift our voices in prayer and song, may this time strengthen the bonds that unite us and may we leave renewed in our determination to confront hatred in all its forms and build a world where the dignity of every human person is cherished and defended,” Melo said. 

Moreover, Melo points to an underlying theological and liturgical parallel that is unique to the idea of remembrance for Christians.

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“ I think as Christians, we are especially attentive to our Jewish roots liturgically in this service. It’s part of our Jewish thought that the notion of memory is a past event, but it's a past event that can be brought into the present and made effective so that it provides an impulse for action. That's what we do in the Eucharist and in any liturgy where we remember Jesus and the blessings of God, we ask that to be present here,” he said. 

While human tragedy is remembered, it also honours the victims, survivors and liberators of the Holocaust in the present, while furthering Shoah education for the future. 

The liturgical dimension of including both Christian Gospel readings and Hebrew Scripture is also a deliberate recognition of improved Christian-Jewish relations over the past 80 years, highlighting  the mutual respect and recognition found in walking together, rather than in opposition or ignorance to one another. 

Melo ties this relationship to the theological view of “anamnesis,” the Greek word relating to recollection and keeping memory alive to prevent repetition. That relation is one that is felt directly through the phrases “Never again” and at the core of Nostra Aetate, the Church's Vatican II declaration transforming its stance toward other religions. 

“ We don't want amnesia, we don't want forgetting, we want remembering. That leads to the newness of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church and God's presence having been recognized. We want to keep alive the pain, but also the newness of where we are today, that we are doing all we can to prevent it from repeating itself in our day, because after that is of the translations of Nosta Aetate — in our day and in our time,” he said. 

For Leszner, that newness brought alive is one that, hopefully, no longer has to be faced alone. 

“My hope is that this event provides a space where we don't just acknowledge the horrors of the past, but strengthen the bonds that help us face the challenges of today and tomorrow, together.”

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