Monday, Jan. 27, was International Holocaust Day. On this day in 1945 during World War II, Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz and Birkenau Nazi concentration camps in Poland.
At this time around 7,000 prisoners were liberated, but there were millions of people who weren’t that lucky.
Those people, primarily European Jews, were “systematically killed by gas chambers, shootings, hangings, starvation, disease, and relentless exhaustion.” All of these atrocities were barbaric in every sense of the word.
These Auschwitz victims and the other victims at the other death camps were stripped of all human dignity.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Day stands as a tribute to the millions of victims of the Holocaust and a reminder of humanity’s darkest chapter in history.
Polish President Andrzej Duda pledges that Poland could be entrusted to preserve the memory of the death camps.
Here are some quotes from some of the survivors of the death camps, which are very resounding, profound and noteworthy:
“Memory hurts, memory helps, memory guides, without memory no history, no experience and no point of reference.”
“Tell what happened to us so that we are not forgotten by history.”
“Antisemitisn is on the rise due to the hatred movements of the radical anti-democratic right.”
“I fear that antisemitism is destroying the haven that the U.S. represented for Jews in the postwar era.”
“Today, and now we see a huge rise in antisemitism and it is precisely antisemitism that led to the Holocaust.”
“As time passes over things that are forgotten, because of the few that are left from our generation. Speak out.”
“The world hasn’t learned its lessons from what happened, and from what was done.”
“Those who lived to see freedom, there were hardly none. So few, and now there are only a handful.”
“Thoughts should go toward the millions of victims who will never tell us what they experienced or felt, just because they were consumed by that mass destruction.”
“Remembering what took place at Auschwitz there is a sacred duty that must be protected.”
“We should express our deepest sympathy, and we should never forget the victims of the Holocaust, not today, not tomorrow.”
And to all these sentiments and statements I say Amen.
We Jews are a hardy and philanthropic group and we have a mission in life to survive, and survive we will, and our survival is predicated on helping others.
As of this letter to the editor writing, this news was just reported: Observances of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Holocaust Days of Remembrance and other annual historical or cultural events have been put on hold due to President Donald Trump’s ban of the diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government.
There are other observances that have been put on hold, which you the reader can look up.
And to this I say OMG, where are we headed.
Lois Eisenberg
Valencia
