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| Photo by the Author |
“The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defense. Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition.” - Baltimore Jewish Times, February 24, 1989
Decades have passed since one of the most appalling events in history took place yet its effects continue to be felt today, not just by the victims, and the families left, but also by the whole world.
The Holocaust, which happened in the Second World War is the systematic murder of nearly six million Jews by Nazi Germany because of their antisemitic ideology which stems from racial superiority, racism, and spites the Nazi Party had towards the Jews who in their eyes were viewed to be the reason of the problems such as the economic depression that Germany was facing in the 1930s. But even before the 1930s and the Second World War, there is already a long history of hostility from Nazis towards the Jews like the time when right-wing extremists blamed them for losing the First World War.
Racism and its Horrific Effects
In an article written by Elias Beck (2016), he shared three significances of the Holocaust in our history even naming it as “one of the most important events in the 20th century.” The first significance is how the Holocaust served as an example of the horrific effect of racism and prejudiced belief and how terrifying it is that it was led by the government and people in power. The next significance is how the Holocaust showed us what mass killing looks like (also known as genocide) and the inhumane torture the Nazis did such as forcing them to live in ghettos and working in concentration camps until the Jews die because of the living conditions at the camp. Lastly, the better take on human rights after the Second World War. Knowing how the Holocaust went down, the United Nations are more protective of humans and are now stricter in implementing ways to protect everyone’s human rights.
In the Victims' Eyes
The word “Holocaust” has been used in describing the death of a large group of people even before the mass killing of the Jews in the Second World War. From the Jewish point of view, they also refer to the Holocaust as the "Shoah" which means a ‘catastrophe’ in Hebrew. The term Shoah is used by those who want to be more specific on the Jewish experiences because it emphasizes mainly the annihilation of the Jews and not the totality of all the victims affected by this historical event.
Throughout the years, a lot of people have talked about or written about the Holocaust. Some from the point of view of the oppressor, some from the people who researched and studied about it but did not experience the horrors firsthand, and some from those who want to amplify the voices of the victims. But it is so important to hear and read it personally from those who experienced it and those who survived the Shoah. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, one of many museums dedicated to the Holocaust, holds a section called Behind Every Name a Story dedicated to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust where they can share their testimonies about the Holocaust.
Here are some of the essays written by the survivors:
Jakob Blankitny
Jakob's story starts as he witnessed his town, Maków Mazoweicki, Poland invaded by the Germans in 1941. He wrote about moving from his hometown to Mlawa Ghetto, and after 10 days he and his family were transferred to Auschwitz. Once in Auschwitz, they were separated into women and men, leaving him with his father. His mother and sister were immediately sent to the gas chambers and then to the crematoria. They were 6,000 people who arrived at Auschwitz that day but only 200 people entered the facility. He was only 16 years old.
“Upon our arrival, we were separated by women and men. They took the women directly to the gas chambers and afterward to the crematoria - my mother and sister were among them!!! What pain, to see them taken to this place, never to return again. Upon our arrival, there were approximately 6,000 people, but only 200 people were left to enter Auschwitz.” - Jakob Blankitny
Marian Kalwary
In his essay titled 'I Remember Everything' he writes about what it is like living in the Warsaw ghetto. How their normal lives changed quickly with the Nazi occupation like getting the electricity cut off, food being scarce, and the sudden overpopulation in the ghetto which led to many transmission of diseases. And when things got dangerous, he transferred from one ghetto to another. In dangerous situations, their apartment in the Sędziszów has a cellar where Marian stays to hide.
“In 1942, at the age of twelve, I grew up quite a bit. Walking—or rather loitering—around the ghetto, the streets were horrendous. I remember the shocking scenes of dead bodies covered with newspapers lying in the streets, as indifferent crowds passed right by the skeleton bodies.” - Marian Kalwary
The Fight for Justice
Sadly, many Nazi criminals are not sentenced for their part during the Holocaust because a lot of them escaped, fled the country, or committed suicide like Adolf Hitler as the war ended. The fight for justice with the help of international efforts started after the war and continues to this day such as The Nuremberg Trials from 1945 to 1946. There were 22 Nazis brought to court and half of them were sentenced to death. The other half received the same sentence as 25 other Nazis bringing it to a total of 37 Nazis sentenced to death from 199 defendants in the trial.
Another notable figure in the fight for justice for the victims of the Holocaust is Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of the Holocaust who experienced being a prisoner in five concentration camps. Once he was free, he became a human rights activist and made it his mission to track down Nazis who were responsible for the Holocaust and present evidence in court for these Nazis to be persecuted.
Forging the Way Forward
Today, we observe the International Day of the Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust which marks the 78th year since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp that happened on January 27, 1945.
After reading all of this information, how do we truly commemorate the victims of the Holocaust?
We truly commemorate them through education and taking action. With all the resources available to us, we must educate ourselves by reading their stories to get the gist of that horrible reality to urge us to do something so the horrors of our history won’t repeat. Their voices deserve to be heard and listened to.
Knowledge is not enough, it should be joined by concrete actions including donations towards organizations helping Holocaust victims and their families like The Jewish Federation, visiting museums, honestly being humane, calling out the unjust, and speaking up against racism and violence, these are already big steps.
Today we pause, reflect, and move forward by learning from the Holocaust to create a better society that is humane and has no place for discrimination of all forms and injustice to sit at.
