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WATERLOO - As a teenager, she narrowly escaped Hitler's Germany on the eve of the great war.

Marianne Bern and her sister fled Nazi Germany for England in 1939 though Kindertransport, a movement to evacuate primarily Jewish children from out of harm's way. At 16, Bern said she was one of the oldest allowed to go.

Bern eventually reunited with her parents. For that, and for her own survival, she considers herself one of lucky few.

On Tuesday, Bern of Cedar Rapids joined with others at the Waterloo Center for the Arts to remember those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Bern participated in the third annual Holocaust Remembrance Day service in the Cedar Valley. She lit a candle in memory of victims of the Holocaust and read a self-authored poem about horrors suffered under Hitler's rule.

Bern has attended other Yom HaShoah services and is willing to do her part to help others remember the Holocaust.

"I'm glad to be able to do that whenever the possibility has arisen," Bern said.

Event organizers encouraged the acknowledgement of Yom HaShoah, established by Israel in 1959, and observed around the world, to honor victims of the Holocaust and those who worked to help them. Participants also hoped remembering history would inspire others to help stop and prevent ongoing and future genocides.

The theme of the 2009 Holocaust Remembrance Day "Never Again: What You Do Matters," promoted action over apathy.

"It is not enough that we ourselves are not guilty of wrongdoing," said Rabbi Stanley Rosenbaum of Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Waterloo. "It is our duty to protest against evil."

"To see injustice done without protesting against it is to participate in that very injustice," he added.

Henry Maidan of Sons of Jacob Synagogue said it's good to "honor the persecuted and those who saved them." His parents Joe and Sonia Maidan, now deceased, survived the death camps Dachau and Auschwitz, respectively. They settled in Waterloo after the war.

"I think what memorials actually do is keep the living in touch with our history and maybe our best so hopefully we change the future," Henry Maidan said.

During a ceremony at the Waterloo Center for the Arts, participants and attendees also remembered those who stood up to Hitler's injustice. The service honored liberators, rescuers, resisters and relief workers and recognized several Iowans by name.

Oscar Gingrich, a World War II veteran retired from the Army, lit a candle to honor all liberators who fought with the Allies. As a young man in his 20s making his way through Europe with the U.S. Army, Gingrich said he knew next to nothing about the extent of the Nazi's atrocities. Just that Hitler was the enemy and the target.

Only later did he learn about the death camps and prisons where millions lost their lives.

"It makes me wonder how anyone can be so cruel," Gingrich said.

Gingrich served with the Army's 186th Tank Destroyer Battalion. He survived the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach, but was wounded on March 7, 1945, roughly two months before the war's end. He walked out of a concrete building in Germany to help two buddies change a tire on a Jeep when he was hit in the face by debris from a Nazi artillery shell blast. He received the Purple Heart for combat wounds.

On Tuesday night, at least one woman in the audience stopped to shake his hand and offer her thanks. Others stopped by Bern's chair to offer a smile and a greating.

Sons of Jacob Synagogue, the University of Northern Iowa Holocaust and Genocide Education Committee, Waterloo Catholic parishes and the Cedar Valley Interfaith Council sponsored this year's service.

Today, a 7 p.m. lecture on the University of Northern Iowa campus will address the legal, religious, political and medical ethical implications of the Holocaust. Guest lecturer is Michael Berenbaum, a distinguished Holocaust scholar and former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Research Institute.

The presentation will take place in Bengtson Auditorium in Russell Hall at UNI. It is free and open to the public.