Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah - Holocaust and Heroism

“Who has inflicted this upon us? Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example. Who knows, it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we have to suffer now. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any country for that matter; we will always remain Jews, but we want to, too.”

-- Anne Frank (1929-1945), writer, died Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah (Day of the Holocaust and Heroism), will be celebrated beginning the evening of Wednesday, April 15.  It will end the following evening of Thursday, April 16.  The day is better known here in America as Holocaust Remembrance Day.  For those of us that grew up in the aftermath of the war with Nazi Germany, and were privileged with freedom of thought and access to "untainted" history, the stories and images will be etched in memory for our lifetime.  For those kids that have grown up in our current society of forgotten, or "rewritten," history, taught, or not taught, in the current American educational system, let ISIS be a "gentle" taste of the horrors that have gone before.

As much as some the world would like to see this historic period erased from memory, we cannot.  How do we erase the memory of entire family lines eradicated?  How do we erase the memory of numbered tattoos on the arms of the survivors?  Soon, those tattoos will turn to dust with the few that remain to tell the tale, but the atrocities visited upon the Jews will live on as if in the genetic memory of the people.  The rest of us must also remember that, there but for the grace of God, could be us.  When will the next insane, tyrannical, group of psychopaths come for the Muslims, the Christian, or the atheists?  Are we to forget history as ISIS beheads, burns, rapes, and murders men, women and children?

As we remember the Holocaust of the 1940s, let us also remember the "New Holocaust" being perpetrated upon the world.  Let us burn the memory of five year old Christian martyrs, refusing to deny their religion, suffering being cut in half alive by these new monsters, this new evil that dares use God as the pretext for what they do.

I have written much, each year, as this day approaches.  I will continue to do so as my own statement of solidarity with those that went before.  I have no forgiveness for those that perpetuate this kind of evil.  Anyone that destroys innocence for some psychopathic pleasure deserves no less from me.  Rabbis are more forgiving it seems, in prayers and poems commemorating the day.  To my, more than probably damnation, you will hear no such words from me.  For those that have missed my past posts on Holocaust Remembrance Day, I have included the links here:

1.  Holocaust Remembrance Day - 2014
2.  Is there no one left to speak out?
3.  A Museum for Tolerance
4.  Holocaust Remembrance Day - 2015

Of all I have read of quotes and poetry concerning this period, I offer the following as one that sticks in my mind.  For me it speaks to how millions can be led peacefully into showers from which, they must have known, there was no return.  It speaks to how they could see the chimneys of the ovens belching smoke and not know, by the stench, what was happening around them.  It speaks to my own confusion of why they did not revolt against their guards as it was surely better to die fighting that to be led like sheep to the slaughter.  But, I am not Jewish.  Like so many, I don't know what it is like to go through this, and I hope to never find out.  And, as much as I try, I just do not understand.

We Do Not Understand 

By Rabbi Jill Hausman (April 2006) 

We do not understand
We cannot grasp six million dead
And if their names were said
Three months we would be standing here.
We are diminished by the hugeness
The intensity of hatred: of fires fanned
And we do not understand.

All, all was swept away
The lives, the way of life,
The scholars, the pious
No sins could be that great, no faults so grave.
They could have; should have left, or could they?
Or was it planned?
And we do not understand.

The innocent who died: free of guilt and free of sin
The children, maidens, hardly had they lived;
Their cries, the trust betrayed
Reflected in their eyes.
Could You have made it one, or two perhaps,
But six? Why six? We cannot help demand,
And we do not understand

And did they die for something?
For our return to Zion?
Were they martyrs for rebirth?
Were they martyrs for the land?
Was their death ordained
By hand of God or hand of man?
And we do not understand.

And did You hide Your countenance?
You must have heard their prayers.
Were you busy with affairs
That we can’t even fathom?
And why were they expendable
So many grains of sand
And we do not understand.

But could it have been so much worse
And could we all have died;
Tiny miracles of persons saved
Of people still alive.
Did it finally stem from our free will
Man’s inhumanity to man?
And we do not understand.

Please remember to our merit
Or put it down to desperation
That we have not forsaken.
We are still here
We are still Jews, Am Yisrael chai.
Please, oh Please
O One Most High
Take us by the hand;
Be near us, comfort, teach us

For we do not understand.

Editor's Note:  

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion.  It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other.  An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth.  After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human.  God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.
  

Pastor Frank Anthony Villari

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path."