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Service at St. George's in Maplewood prays for 11 million victims

By: 
Philip Sean Curran / News-Record

Helen Paktor was not going to miss the 35th annual Interfaith Holocaust Remembrance Service on April 22.

As a survivor of Auschwitz and two other concentration camps, she sat with nine other survivors who served as living reminders of the Holocaust.

The wooden pews of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Maplewood were filled with a crowd of about 230 people, some wearing yarmulkes, the traditional Jewish head coverings.

As in past years, the service relied on song and prayer, including the mourners’ Kaddish, led in Hebrew and English by cantor Joan Finn of Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange.

“Whether we’re Jews or Christians or Muslims, everybody comes together at this event to honor the memory of the 11 million” victims, said Nancy Chiller Janow, co-chairwoman of the event, the oldest Holocaust service in New Jersey.