The Holocaust was no Hollow Cost - But REMEMBER and Live On!
On Facebook this week I was horrified to see a post containing a photo of Islamic Fundamentalists calling for another "Hollow Cost". 70 years ago the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp was liberated, and a total of over 11 million "non-Aryans" died during the Holocaust. Yet anti-Semitism and xenophobia still run rife. As has been recognised by the Former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, the Holocaust was not simply an attack against the Jewish Nation - it was indeed an attack against all members of humanity. Jews, homosexuals, disabled people, gypsies, Jehovah's Witness Witnesses and "others" were murdered. Today, as I look back upon my trip to Poland a few weeks ago, I wish to remember the dead and live on in their memory...
Historically most, if not all, of the "greatest nations" have persecuted and outcast the Jews: the Greeks, Romans, Christians, French, Russians; even the English. And then the Nazis. Lead by one of the most terrifically hateful orators of all, the harsh-lyrics of Adolf Hitler engulfed German propaganda with the ideology of "Arianism", the theory of a "Master Race". Anti-Jewish education was presented as not only acceptable, but a necessary entitlement! "Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel. When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the next war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?" And so the revived love of anti-Semitism was spread throughout Germany...
The Nazi regime, which spanned Poland and much of Europe, was an attack against humanity. To skip over the research that can be done online, I will reveal some key aspects of the Holocaust that you many not know about - some of which I could only see with my own eyes. Bullet points: disabled people's prosthetic limbs were taken away pre-gassing; gold was taken from gassed bodies and kept or sold on in Germany; remains of human finger bones form above the surface at Chelmo Camp; the ovens used to cremate Jews at Majdanek camp generated heat for Nazi soldier's showers next door.
Fortunately, the "Final Solution" - a disgusting euphemistic name for the last way in which the Nazis attempted to systematically practice the genocide of all Jews, through death camps and concentration camps - was rendered incomplete by the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp, and many others after, on this day 70 years ago.
Hitler: "Should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?"
Yet Anti-Semitism still thrives at the same time as Jewish practice thrives. It is a paradox to which radical Islamic Terrorists have one answer - wipe them out! So the one way to solve it - for good to win over evil, if you will - is to say no to xenophobia which is aimed towards Jews, and indeed non-Islamic "Infidels". Modern Islamic Fundamentalism is the latest threat to all of humanity. Simply, there must be a bottom line: do not allow this! For if the world would not have condemned Hitler's Nazi's, the Jewish Nation wouldn't exist; nor would the enslavement of black "Negros" have stopped. And what about women's rights....? Social Progression can never occur if we do not condemn the enemies of humanity.
So we must never forget. "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it again", said the social sceptic George Santayana, yet most importantly I feel that we must pose ourselves the question: "Where is Hitler now?" Where is "Nazism?" Indeed, the single way in which Jews, and all other outcast members of society, can answer Hitler is to flourish. Not forgetting means not simply the act of remembering history, but realising it and using it as motivation to carry on. Remembering must be used to project into the future.
Because the most important lesson I learned in Poland - at Majdanek especially - is that the lives, dreams and aspirations of over 11 million humans were stolen during the Holocaust. Dreams of once again going home and eating were never realised. My Rabbi cried when he told us the story of one young boy who sent a letter to a friend in Israel, expressing the desire to play a game just one more time with his little sister. And the boy wanted to say thank you to his parents. To not be so selfish. And we cried with our Rabbi, cried for the boy. We cried for all of those who could never....
So my Poland trip gave me a sense of mission. It gave me a sense of fulfilment and identity too. Greater acceptance of other people and myself was inspired. But lest you or anyone fail to realise this: we were able to walk into and then walk out of the death countless camps which millions of people were brutally whipped, tortured, starved, worked, shot alive, burned alive and gassed. We rejoiced as we sang and danced way out of Birkenau Camp as a group. What would a victim of Chelmo, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek or Treblinka have said if they could do the same?
The Holocaust came at no "Hollow Cost", but I will continue to live in its memory. If we can achieve our life ambitions and be ourselves, then the most important statement can be made: the Holocaust was not a success. Am Yisrael Chai - Israel Lives. But it isn't just Jews who died and live on - the Holocaust was an attack against humanity. So we must REMEMBER and Never Forget.
Yes; we must all live on!
