As a fighter pilot whose unit teamed up with the U.S. Third Army to liberate 21,000 prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945, Eugene Grant had the chance to be part of a historic event. But he didn’t take it.

The 94-year-old real-estate heavyweight (he sold his majority stake in the St. John’s Terminal Building in New York City earlier this year for about $250 million) has seized on many opportunities. But flying out to Weimar, near Buchenwald, wasn’t one of them. “My fellow officers went, but I couldn’t. I don’t know why,” said the chairman emeritus of the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center in White Plains who donated $250,000 to the nonprofit last month.

The inspiring saga of Holocaust survivors Jack Polak, 100 and wife of 67 years, Ina, 90 , was viewed by a capacity audience at the Annual Westchester Countywide Holocaust Commemoration, Keeping the Memory Alive: Generation to Generation.

There was sunshine aplenty for the YWCA of White Plains 5th Annual Stand Against Racism event co-sponsored by the Jay Heritage Center. Featuring a diverse panel of local Westchester voices attuned to the importance of human rights advocacy, the free public program drew a crowd of about 60 people.