Holocaust victims were honored Tuesday at an opening ceremony which kicked off Field of Flags National Days of Remembrance Memories of Courage, a three-day event at ETSU.
ETSU, in association with the Hillel Council of Colorado, has organized the Field of Flags memorial in honor of those victims of the Holocaust.
The opening ceremony was held on the Cave Patio with ETSU President Dr. Paul Stanton and Duffie Jones, the Johnson City Mayor, in attendance.
Many ETSU students were involved in the ceremony. They each had passages to read and then a candle was lit.
Amanda Howard, sophomore, was asked by Dr. Deborah White, assistant vice president for the Center for Student Life and Leadership, to be involved in the program. She read a poem titled “The Light of Hope.”
“I definitely gained a lot of information and knowledge about the Holocaust I never learned in high school,” Howard said after the event. “Being a minority, it was nice to learn about the other minorities’ histories.”
Ashley Newport, sophomore, also saw the event as a learning experience. “I feel that it really helped me be more aware of the Holocaust because I really didn’t know that much about it,” she said.
Rabbis’ Joe Bell and Bryan Nevins-Goldman were also included in the ceremony along with the Rev. Jerry Everly.
The main attraction of the three-day event is the Field of Flags located directly across from the Amphitheater. It is an arrangement of 2,068 flags representing the nearly 12 million victims of the Holocaust.
The display features flags of seven different colors, each one representing a different nationality or group, who the Nazis targeted. Each flag in the display also represents 5,000 victims.
There are 1,200 yellow flags to represent the 6 million Jews killed. There are 667 red flags representing the 3.3 million Soviets, and 100 orange flags represent the 500,000 Poles. Eighty blue flags represent 400,000 murdered Gypsies. The 70,000 disabled victims have 14 green flags. Twenty thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses are represented by four white flags. Finally, three pink flags represent 15,000 homosexuals.
The flag display is countered on the other side by a display of over 70 signs that have facts and stories about the Holocaust on them. They are grouped by four themes: Nazi Rule, Nazi Camp System, Individual Stories, and The “Final Solution.” The display will be up until Thursday evening.
“I feel like the people who were involved in the Holocaust are going to be remembered,” said Newport, a students involved in the opening ceremony.
The event is intended to educate about the history and tragedy of the Holocaust. It was also intended to make people reflect on the memory of those who were killed and also the courage of all those who were victims.
Casey Richardson, a senior involved in the opening ceremony, said, “I think it’s important to have days like this to remember. They keep us in check. It’s good to recall what we as humans can do to each other.

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