GREENSBURG, Pa. -This year’s Westmoreland County Interfaith Remembrance Service (Yom HaShoah) will be held on Wednesday, April 30.  The ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. at the Congregation Beth Israel on Weldon Street in Latrobe, Pa.  A reception will follow the service.  There is no charge for the program. 
 
Featured speaker for this year is Mr. Fritz Ottenheimer of Pittsburgh, Pa.  He is the author of “Escape and Return,” a memoir about his family’s escape from Germany and his return as a U.S soldier. 
 
Along with the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, sponsors of the program include The Westmoreland Jewish Community Council of the United Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, B’nai B’rith Warren Roy Laufe, Unit #903, the Greater Latrobe Ministerial Association, the Greensburg Ministerium, Congregation Beth Israel, Latrobe, Congregation Emanu-El Israel, Greensburg, the Greensburg-Jeannette NAACP and the YWCA of Westmoreland County. 
 
The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education (NCCHE) was established on the campus of Seton Hill University in 1987. Seton Hill initiated this national Catholic movement toward Holocaust studies in response to the urging of Pope John Paul II to recognize the significance of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and to "promote the necessary historical and religious studies on this event which concerns the whole of humanity today." The NCCHE has as its primary purpose the broad dissemination of scholarship on the root causes of anti-Semitism, its relation to the Holocaust and the implications from the Catholic perspective of both for today's world. Toward this end the Center is committed to equipping scholars, especially those at Catholic institutions, to enter into serious discussion on the causes of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; shaping appropriate curricular responses at Catholic institutions and other educational sites; sustaining Seton Hill's Catholic Institute for Holocaust Studies in Israel through a cooperative program with Yad Vashem, the Isaac Jacob Institute for Religious Law and Hebrew University; encouraging scholarship and research through conferences, publications, workshops for educators, and similar activities; sponsoring local events on the Holocaust and related topics in the University and the community and enhancing Catholic-Jewish relations. Please contact the NCCHE by calling 724-830-1033 or sending an e-mail to ncche@setonhill.edu.
 
Seton Hill University, founded by the Sisters of Charity, is a coeducational Catholic liberal arts university in Greensburg, Pa. Chartered in 1918, Seton Hill offers more than 30 undergraduate programs and nine graduate programs, including an MBA. Seton Hill brings the world to its students through its distinguished lecturers and nationally and internationally renowned centers. Recognized three times by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the nation’s Top 100 Entrepreneurial Universities, Seton Hill has also been named a Best Baccalaureate College by U.S. News & World Report, one of the Best in the Northeast by The Princeton Review, and one of Pennsylvania’s Top 100 Businesses by Pennsylvania Business Central. In addition, Seton Hill has been named a University of Distinction by Colleges of Distinction, an organization founded by a group of concerned parents, educators and admissions professionals.  For more information on Seton Hill please visit www.setonhill.edu or call 1-800-826-6234.