The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education and the Office of Campus Ministry at Seton Hill University will hold the annual Kristallnacht Remembrance Interfaith Service at 2 p.m. Monday.

This year’s service, which is open to the public, will be livestreamed, and also available for later viewing, on the NCCHE’s Facebook page.

“It is essential that we not forget that terrible night in 1938, not only to remember and honor the millions of innocent victims of German fascism, but to remind us of how essential it is that we continue to work together to create a world that respects the inherent dignity of everyone — a world where such atrocities will never happen again,” said James Paharik, Seton Hill professor of sociology and director of the NCCHE.

This year’s service marks the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, which took place Nov. 9-10, 1938.

“The Nazis burned synagogues, looted Jewish homes and businesses and murdered individuals throughout Germany, Austria and other Nazi-controlled areas in a pogrom known as Kristallnacht, ‘the night of broken glass,’ ” according to a Seton Hill press release. “The allusion is to the broken glass that littered the ground from the shattered windows of Jewish-owned businesses. This state-inspired and sanctioned night of violence resulted in the deaths of 91 Jews, the looting of 7,000 Jewish businesses, the arrest of 30,000 Jewish males and the desecration or destruction of 267 synagogues.”

Featured speaker for this year’s service is Linda F. Hurwitz, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors.

Hurwitz is former director of the Holocaust Center of United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, where she supervised the all-volunteer project that culminated in the Oxford University publication of “Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust.”

Hurwitz also was an English teacher and head of the middle school at Community Day School in Pittsburgh, a Jewish K-8 school, where she created Holocaust curricula. She teaches adult education at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Seton Hill formally announced the establishment of its National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education in November 1987 by commemorating Kristallnacht. The university since has marked the anniversary annually with an interfaith service where students gather with Holocaust survivors.

For information or to stream the service, visit facebook.com/SHUNCCHE.

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