NEVER AGAIN - TO ANY GROUP ACT AGAINST ALL GENOCIDE, JEWS URGE.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

Remembrance and action were the twin themes Sunday at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony attended by dozens of survivors of the World War II genocide.

Speakers at Pan Pacific Park honored the survivors and the memory of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. They also spoke of ongoing killings in the Darfur region of Sudan as genocide that must be stopped.

``We're not here simply to remember; we're here as a call to action,'' said former U.S. Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross, the keynote speaker. ``We're here to make sure that we do justice to the memories of the victims of what has been the greatest, most monstrous crime in the history of man against humanity. And the way we do justice to the memory of those victims is in fact to ensure that we act.''

The dozens of Holocaust survivors were among about 2,000 people under a giant blue-and-white tent at the park in La Brea.

Israeli flags lined a walkway. Security was tight, with several police officers and firefighters positioned on a small hill overlooking the ceremony site. Security guards checked purses.

Holocaust survivor Severyn Ashkenazy, 70, who escaped the genocide along with his immediate family, sat in the front row dressed in black. The Polish town where Ashkenazy grew up had 18,500 Jews, but his family was the only one that survived intact.

It did not take long after the German soldiers arrived in the town for Ashkenazy's parents to realize how dire the situation was.

``At first (the soldiers) organized what was called an `action,' ... and the action consisted of rounding up Jews and basically sending them to death not far from the city,'' he said.

His family hid in a cellar and had to pay the owner of the house not to turn them in.

``I remember it was small, dark, wet,'' Ashkenazy said. ``The cellar was cut in the clay. We were fortunate that the ground was made out of clay and therefore, on the one hand, it was good because it was very compact; on the other hand, it was constantly wet.''

Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, addressed the crowd, saying that he had heard little about the Holocaust from his father, who escaped the Nazis by coming to America.

But Koretz said that he grew up believing that humanity must be taught never to forget what happened in the Holocaust. He urged the crowd to pressure elected representatives to take action to stop the killing in Darfur.

``If we really mean `never again' and not just `never again to us,' we must act forcefully, and we must act now,'' Koretz said.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at Sunday's event, as did the consul general of Israel in Los Angeles. Consul generals of Canada, Poland and Germany also attended.

Ashkenazy said Poles today welcome Jews, and he travels to Poland regularly to help its small Jewish community.

The service ended with kaddish, the Jewish mourners' prayer. Kaddish is traditionally recited standing by a Jew who has lost a family member, but on Sunday the whole audience stood while those who knew the words said kaddish.

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

[phone]

IF YOU GO

A Holocaust Day commemoration ceremony honoring the late Simon Wiesenthal will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Museum of Tolerance, 9786 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles. Attendees are asked to RSVP at [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1) A man looks at the Los Angeles monument to victims after he participated Sunday in the Holocaust remembrance ceremony at Pan Pacific Park.

(2) Barbed wire surrounds L.A.'s Holocaust monument. Security was heavy at a remembrance ceremony Sunday.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)