Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January) is a national event in the United Kingdom. Simply dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. Since January 2001, it has been on the 27th January. That date was chosen as it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in 1945.
Although not a memorial day here, every year on this day, I do try and pause to think about what happened. I don't think about the six million jews who were slaughtered in histories worse attempted genocide. I don't don't think about the other 10 million victims of that war. My thoughts don't center around the massive cost to the future of humanity, the huge hole in advancing knowledge caused by the senseless war and the tyrants who caused them.
What I think about is the people just before the massive killing machines started up. I think about all the people who could not seem to see what was going on right in front of them. All the warning signs they missed. All the speeches and discriminatory laws they seemed to ignore.
In Germany 1933, laws are put on the books that target jews specifically. 42 laws restricting the rights of German Jews to earn a living, to enjoy full citizenship and to educate themselves. Actual laws. Not simple discrimination, but laws that separate a people based on their race.
The Jews were completely stripped of German citizenship by the Nuremberg Laws of 15 September 1935. Most were born in Germany, and had lived their whole lives there. These were not foreigners. For most Germany was the country of their families for generations. Some German Jews could trace their families to Roman times. Suddenly they are stripped of citizenship. They served in the German army and contributed to every facet of the German culture and community.
This is what I think about today. How could these people not see that worse is coming? How can they stay? How could the world sit for this sort of thing? How could America, the home of the brave and free, just stand by and let this happen?
Kristallnacht was on 10 November 1938. On a single night, 91 Jews were murdered and 25,000–30,000 were arrested and deported. Deported, not to other countries, but to Nazi concentration camps.
On a single night, they see with their own eyes the destruction of more than 200 synagogues and the ransacking of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes.
Businesses that had been in place for decades, contributing to the community for years.
Why didn't anyone take the killers at their word? Why did not one believe that, if given the chance Nazis would exterminate anyone they thought were inferior?
I suppose it is for the same reason no one believes Hamas today. I suppose that it is the same as today where so many of the governments of the Arab and Musilm countries have laws that restrict people based on Race and religion. I suppose it is the same when these same countries explore that genocide again.
When an Egyptian Cleric Justifies The Holocaust and "Hopes It Will Happen Again But, Allah Willing,At The Hand Of Muslims" no one takes him seriously. Even if he able to say these horrible in public, with no one to rebuke him. No one.
When Hamas speaks of genocide being the only "Peace" they want for the middle east no one takes them seriously.
When Iran talks of genocide as being the only possible way to "peace" no one takes them seriously.
Well, someone does, and when they do, they are labeled as Nazis and genocidal.
Please watch the video. Please realize that this was broadcast on regular TV in Egypt, and NO ONE TAKES HIM SERIOUSLY.
UPDATE: This was shown yesterday on Television.