It starts with a program at Yad Vashem, with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu speaking, poetry being read... it's being broadcast on Mako TV, where my husband and I are watching, crying. My Hebrew may not be 100% but it is good enough to feel the pain when they read a daughter's letter to her mother, written while she was on a train to her death. I may not know all the words, but my soul knows a mother's anguish over her children traveling to their deaths simply because they were Jewish.
Have we learned anything? Jews? Non-Jews? The world?
The point of Yom HaShoah is to remember, but the lesson is to act.
Tomorrow at 10am, my husband and I will stand on the bridge over Route 4, listen for the two minute siren commemorating our six million lost souls, and watch as every single car, bus, and taxi stops on the highway. Jews will be together as each driver exits his and her vehicle and stands at attention, recalling how we were slaughtered by the Nazis and other Axis powers. My husband and I will hold hands as our tears fall. We will all hug our sons, daughters, and families tighter tomorrow night, knowing that without people and nations acting consciously and deliberately, this can happen again and, if we are not careful now, it will.
We have been hunted and murdered. We have been burned, literally and metaphorically. But, like a phoenix, from the ashes of our previous generation, we have burst forth with new life, strength, and ferocity. We have birthed our new country of Israel and provided her with strong young soldiers, intelligent and clever commanders; we have created technology that the entire world uses; we have won amazing amounts of Nobel Prizes, adding our intellect and insight to the planet's education; we have donated time, money, bodies, and blood to other countries who are in desperate need of help during emergencies (and many times been first in line to do so).
And with all this, we look back and wonder, who did we lose? Not just fathers, mothers, grandparents, children... But in those six million (and more), what would have been discovered, accomplished, created, not just for us, but for the world? How many family trees were brutally cut with wide, evil swings of the Nazi scythe? How many lives in how many countries were shredded in each day that passed, with each train car that left its station, with each boat that was turned back from safety?
Never forget what happened. Never forget that evil is everywhere, waiting for its opportunity to strike. Never forget that millions of children (babies, toddlers, school-age kids) were murdered, shot point-blank, because they were simply of no use to the Nazi party. Never forget that people voted for the Nazi party, that Austrians cheered as Germans came in, that there is a special award for Righteous Gentiles because, well, there were so few of them.
The world is still against the Jews. Anti-semitism is still raging like wildfire, consuming everything and everyone it touches. It lives out in the open, in tweets, Facebook pages, and jokes; it lives in groups on campuses, in BDS, in organizations taking over countries, and in your average citizen in Europe, South America, North America, Australia, Africa, Asia.... Don't doubt that hatred of Jews and Israel is alive and everywhere.
Never forget that the best way to remember is to act, open your mouth, do something! Whether it's to pray, donate money, be an advocate for good, do your job against evil. Every Jew and non-Jew is different, everyone has a role to play.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Don't do nothing. Don't EVER do nothing.
- Don't EVER assume you don't have a choice.
- Don't EVER assume that someone else will do it.
- Don't EVER stop!
Never forget. Always act.
NEVER AGAIN.
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