On Thursday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m., the Dayton Yom Hashoah Committee will present the annual Dayton Area Yom Hashoah Observance in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. The program will be held at Temple Beth Or, 5275 Marshall Road in Washington Township. The entire community is welcome.

This year’s observance commemorates the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi labor and death camps by the Allies. Lighting six flames to commemorate the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust will be six liberators, veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces who helped liberate the camps.

The lighting ceremony will feature a new oak candelabra crafted for the annual observance by community volunteers Dr. Burt Saidel and Harold Prigozen.

The guest speaker for the observance is Irvin Szames of Columbus. By the age of 10, Szames had escaped from Polish ghettos, hid in forests and lived with partisans fighters. He was freed by the Russian Army in 1945, after which he joined a youth movement to immigrate to Palestine. In 1947 he was taken to Palestine aboard the ship Exodus, but when the British denied him entrance, he was returned to Germany as a prisoner. In 1949 Szames immigrated to the United States. He settled in Columbus and later joined the U.S. Air Force.

During the evening, the student winners of the annual Holocaust Writing Contest and Max May Memorial Holocaust Art Contest will be recognized. Works from the art contest will be on display beginning at 6:30 p.m.

The Yom Hashoah Committee is a joint project of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton and the Holocaust Committee.

For more information about the program, call Marshall Weiss at 854-4150.