The Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and 

Human Rights ​Education of North Carolina 


Holocaust Speakers Bureau 

New Scientific Research Makes the Story of the “Dachau Ashes”,

Buried in the Durham Hebrew Cemetery in 2014,

More Complex and More Sinister​


May 16, 2023 7:00pm

Join us at Beth El Synagogue (1004 Watts St., Durham, NC) on May 16 at 7pm to hear Dr. Edward Halperin discuss the story

including recent revelations. If you are unable to attend in person, please join via Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86239928930)

On May 25, 2014 a funeral took place at the Durham Hebrew Cemetery, attended by several  hundred community members and presided over by Rabbis Greyber and Feldman, for the burial of ashes from the Dachau Concentration Camp crematoria.  The presence of human remains in the ashes was confirmed by laboratory tests at the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office. Nine years later additional research shows the story of the “Durham ashes” is more complex and more sinister than originally described.

This program is co-sponsored by Beth El Synagogue

and The Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights ​Education of North Carolina.





Past Events 2023

The Durham/Chapel Hill Jewish Community
Yom HaShoah Holocaust Commemoration

Resistance & Survival: A Jewish Partisan of the Parczew Forest

Sunday April 16, 2023 5:00 pm
Beth El Synagogue, 1004 Watts St., Durham, 27701

Ludwig Wurzelmann, born in 1926 in Warsaw, became one of the few Polish Jews to survive World War II and the Shoah. His dramatic story--of growing up in Poland, being confined in the Wlodowa Ghetto, fighting as a partisan in the Parczew Forest--will be shared with us by his son, Dr. John Wurzelmann, a retired physician who lives in Chapel Hill.

In addition to Dr. Wurzelmann’s talk, this year’s commemoration will feature candle lighting, along with music by the Triangle Jewish Chorale and other local artists. Rabbi Daniel Greyber of Beth El Synagogue will chant El Male Rachamim and lead the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Recording of this event is available on our YouTube channel.


Admission is free, and all are welcome.For more information, contact henry.fuchs@gmail.com or sharonhalperin88@gmail.com.