“Broken Glass, Shattered Lives: The 70th Anniversary of Kristallnacht” is the theme of the 2008 St. Louis Yom HaShoah Commemor-ation being held on May 1 at United Hebrew Congregation.

The event is expected to attract more than 750 people to hear and honor local survivors and remember the victims of the Holocaust.

“Historians say Kristallnacht was the beginning of the end,” Holocaust Museum and Learning Center chair Marci Rosenberg said. “The incredible destruction during that event made it clear it was time to get out, if you could still get out.”

This is the third year Kent Hirschfelder is chairing the event.

“It is an honor and a privilege to get to know the survivors as well as I have over the years,” Hirschfelder said. “We are fortunate and blessed to have first person eyewitness survivors of Kristallnacht who are willing to share their personal experiences. It is a tremendous opportunity to hear these survivors — for the Jewish community and the community at large.”

“Unto Every Person There Is A Name,” an international program which has members of the local community reading the names of Holocaust victims, begins at 5:30 p.m. and then continues after the program. Local B’nai B’rith director Michelle Gralnick is coordinating the effort.

Every year Mel Worley of Mel Worley Floral Artists donates roses which are presented to every survivor.

The program which begins at 7 p.m. will include survivor testimonies, a performance by musicians from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, a candle lighting ceremony, saying the Kaddish for the six million and the procession of the Holocaust Torahs.

More than 1,500 Torah scrolls were confiscated by the Nazis during the war and later rescued and distributed on “permanent loan” throughout the world. Though the scrolls can no longer be read, they are used ceremonially in many congregations. There are at least seven Holocaust Torahs in St. Louis.

“A representative from each congregation where a Holocaust Torah is housed carries the Torah in a processional and recessional for the program,” Rosenberg said.

The survivor testimonies are the main part of the program. Rosenberg said there are two survivors sharing their stories publicly for the first time.

“It is such an honor they are going to relive this for us,” Rosenberg said. “One survivor told me, ‘for you, Kristallnacht was 70 years ago, for us it feels like yesterday.’ We can’t even imagine what it was like for a 15-year-old to witness that horror: their fathers taken away, family businesses destroyed, being forced to hide and called terrible names.”

The 2008 Yom HaShoah Commemoration is being held at United Hebrew, Thursday, May 1 at 7 pm. Devices will be available for the hearing impaired. For more information call 314-442-3714 or visit www.hmlc.org. The annual Yom HaShoah observance is underwritten by the Wolf/Najman Memorial.