This is a republication, for the most part, from a diary that i post here every International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Much of the content was first published in 1997, in a gender friendly Siddur in which i was a member of, and contributor to, the editing team.
There is no coincidence that January 27th was specifically picked because that was the day, in 1945, that the Soviet army entered Auschwitz-Birkenau and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners.
That was followed by the Americans liberating Dachau and Buchenwald, England liberating Bergen-Belsen and on and on until all the 20 major and over 1,200 camps and sub-camps were liberated.
Today is the 76th anniversary of that event in Auschwitz.
On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Personally, i can trace the deaths of my ancestors to four separate camps.
Auschwitz is but one.
In 1941, a Polish couple, he a postmaster and his wife a seamstress... Catholics… were neighbors to my distant cousins and their two families
They tried to hide them… to protect them.
And were successful in doing so for four months….
…. until another neighbor discovered this and turned them in.
My ancestors, and this couple… and their children... were sent to Auschwitz and disappeared into the horrors of the Shoah.
In just the short time of my tenure here, there are now many in roles of great importance that are trying to normalize those that are goose-stepping over the rights and very lives of our brethren.
And are giving it a go themselves.
They have learned nothing.
We can’t...
…we won’t...
...let that happen.
We have lived in numberless towns and villages; in too many of them we have endured cruel suffering. Some we have forgotten; others are sealed into our memory, a wound that does not heal. A hundred generations of victims and martyrs - and still their blood cries out from the earth. And so many, so many at Dachau, at Buchenwald, at Auschwitz, at Bergen Belsen, at Babi Yar, and…..
What can we say? What can we do? How bear the unbearable, or accept what life has brought to our people? All who are born must die, but how shall we compare the slow passage of our time with the callous slaughter of the innocent, cut off before their time?
They lived with faith. Not all, but many. And, surely, many died with faith: faith in God, in life, in the goodness that even flames cannot destroy. May we find a way to the strength of that faith, that trust, that sure sense that life and soul endure beyond this body’s death.
They have left their lives to us: let a million candles glow against the darkness of these unfinished lives.
We remember our six million, who died when madness ruled, and evil darkened the earth. We remember those of whom we know, and those whose very names are lost.
We cherish the memory of those who died as martyrs, those who died resisting, and those who died in terror.
We mourn for all that died with them: their goodness and their wisdom, which could have done so much to ennoble and enrich humanity. We mourn for the genius, and the wit that died, the learning and the laughter that were lost.
They are like candles that shine from the darkness of those years, and in their light we know what goodness is.
We were joined in the charnel grounds by so many of our brothers and sisters whose race, lifestyle, thoughts or beliefs were deemed dangerous or decadent...the immigrants and migrants, the Roma, the Slavs, the Poles, the Asiatic, the Russians, the political opposition, the intellectuals, the trade unionists, the priests and pastors, the teachers and professors, the homosexuals, the disabled, the authors and artists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the homeless, the resisters, and all those that opposed the madness in any form.
Over ten million souls, all told.
We salute those men and women who had the courage to stand outside the mob, to save us, and to suffer with us. They are a source of hope when we are tempted to despair.
May such times never come again, and may the suffering of our people...may the suffering of any and all people...not be in vain. In our daily fight against cruelty and prejudice, tyranny and persecution, their memory gives us strength.
And to not let any people on earth go through the darkness alone, without at least our voice raised in defiance of the madness and horror afflicting them.
When evil repeated itself...again...and again...In Rwanda, in Cambodia, in Bosnia, in Armenia, in Darfur, in Russia, in China, in the Ukraine, in Bangladesh ..and ..and .... To the genocide of the Indigenous of Africa, the Americas, Australia, Asia, Tasmania, the Aleutians, West Papua, Myanmar, Tibet, East Timor.. and it goes on and on and on.
So many… so many…
In silence we remember those who sanctified God’s name on earth.
And then….with that same remembrance burning bright…...whenever a people….any people are oppressed, denied dignity, denied justice, and denied even the water to drink in the desert….we will not be silent.
We will speak!
We will RESIST!
Bet your tuchus we’ll resist.
Shalom aleichem. As Salaam Alaikum. Namaste. Blessed be.
Peace be upon you….and yours.
And please remember…
We do our best homage to our dead when we live our lives most fully, even in the shadow of our loss.