NORWICH – A lilac tree was planted in Helen Sperling’s honor at the Norwich Jewish Center on Holocaust Remembrance Day at the end of last month.

Per a release from the Norwich Jewish Center, “Every year Jews mark he anniversary of the death of loved ones. To mourn them and to commemorate the loss of all who perished, a special day has been set aside – Yom HaShoah- a day when the entire community gathers to remember and reflect.”

In honor of Remembrance Day, The Norwich Jewish Center showed the video of the late Helen Sperling. Sperling was a survivor who turned the anguish of the Holocaust and her pain into a positive instrument for education through a lecture series. The lecture series began in 1967, initially known as the Annual Holocaust Lecture series, it was later named for Helen and her husband Leon. From 1968 until her death in 2015 at the age of 95, she shared her life and experiences with thousands of people, be it in schools, universities, prisons, clubs and churches.