Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
Never forget? Yet we have somehow forgotten every other mass genocide of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, some with greater death tolls than "The Holocaust".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll
I'm not trying to minimize their suffering. My mom lived through it as a young girl, the daughter of a German pig farmer. She had some personal stories of what happened to her Jewish friends that would absolutely tear you apart to hear. She was that man with the tattoo in my young life. She never forgot, never stopped her warnings.
I have been in their Holocaust Museum in Israel. It is truly gut wrenching to walk through it and follow the timeline. For anyone who wants to go, allow yourself a couple of days in the museum. It takes that long to see it all, and one is still left to feel like we only just got a glimpse into the horror of it all.
So, yeah, I get the need to "never forget", to keep the horrors of the Holocaust fresh as a reminder to never let it happen again. But we have... time and time again... And we have already forgotten those, the more recent atrocities. Perhaps one of the worst observations I can make about mankind is that what happened to the Jews was nothing special. It does not stand apart from what has happened to many, many other people. So while we pledge to "never forget" the Jews, we allow it to continue elsewhere, and very quickly forget about it. If we even bother to discuss it at all. |
Grown up in upstate NY, the married couple next door, he was Austrian and she was Czech. Both of their families lost everything to get out in the 1930's. The wife was about 3 years old and they were still working to escape Paris in 1940. The Husband and his family did a literally Van Trappe family and walked to Switzerland. He was about 10 years old. Rudy passed away in this past year.
My wife's family had to leave Spain around the same time (middle 1930's) because of a different Fascist dictator. Her grandfather was Opus Dei and they fought against Franco. It was a lousy time all around.
I grew up with a lot of Jewish kids in my town. Most of them were great people. What amazes me is to know other people for continental Europe who are so Anti-Semitic.