YOM HASHOAH: HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE WEEK
Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day and the beginning of this week of solemn appreciation of the horrors that took place at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. I was honored to speak to about 300 people and at the Congregation Tiferet Israel yesterday at their Yom Hashoah event. There were about a dozen Holocaust Survivors in attendance….as I looked at them while I was sitting on the “bima” or dais, I could only imagine the extraordinary journeys each had traveled to arrive at that moment yesterday. Pain and anguish, yes. No one could endure such horrors and loss without a seeming intolerable degree of suffering. Yet for a moment, I focused on their will to live, the determination to build a life out of what for many people would have been a sea of excuses. The human spirit is such an endless source of amazement…these people and their lives certainly were proof.
As I watched the six Remembrance Torches be lit, each by a Survivor, I felt dismayed about the noticeable absence of young people among the congregation. Granted, it was a breathtakingly beautiful day outside. But clearly the race with time I so frequently mention concerning the loss of World War II veterans applies equally to victims of the Holocaust. Without young people who understand the fragility of freedom and how quickly it can be extinguished……unforgettable lessons of World War II….we greatly increase the risk to our democracy and people of good will everywhere. Troubling signs have already emerged in many areas of the world, Darfur being the most publicly visible. All of us who work in the area of history must find new ways to reach young audiences and use the painful lessons of years past to teach. We can not remember what we do not know.
Lest we forget that while there were 6 million — 6,000,000!!! Jews murdered, there were also 25 million — 25,000,000!!! Russians who died during the War, many of whom were murdered just because they were Slavs, gypsies or some other hated group. Of the 25 million more than 17 million were civilians. Almost one million were citizens of St. Petersburg alone. The toll goes on and on with the numbers mind-numbingly large. Really, how can anyone relate to the loss of human life of such magnitude?
We honor those murdered by remembering…..and allow for thoughts of those who sacrificed their lives to bring an end to World War II too, for they are heroes, the young men and women of Allied nations whose actions doomed Hitler and the Nazi’s bloodthirsty ambitions.