After Auschwitz 70

Yesterday was hard for me, I won't lie and say it wasn't.

Why, you ask? When a person chooses to undertake the preservation of one of the darkest chapters of human history it can be overwhelming to the point of devastation. Yesterday I said little with the exception of talking in class or to my suite mates because I wanted the day to be completely about reflection and that is what I got. I got a day to converse with myself and dig deeper into why I might have been chosen to keep this message alive. 

I streamed the ceremonies at Auschwitz live on the website so I got a chance to watch history. I got the chance to see what might be the last "milestone" anniversary of liberation that survivors en masse will make it to. As I watched, there were things that moved me to tears. Survivor Roman Kent said in his speech, "If I could make an eleventh commandment it would be that no one is allowed to be a bystander." This is the crux of Never Again in my mind. Especially with the anti-Semetic and other attacks rooted in prejudice that have been going on recently this statement is a cry to the world. It's 2015, so why does it look almost like 1933? We cannot let this go on.

When you go as deeply into the Holocaust as I have, many wonder if you can come out. The truth is that you can't. Things resonate and stay with you, you cry for people you did not know, and you gain a new perspective on what hate can do. It's harrowing and it can sometimes drown you completely. I've found that a lot of the times I have to take a step away from it to reconnect with life around me. As a historian, my mind dwells a lot in the past and I'm thankful that I can come back to the present when the past is too much.

Last night as a long and hard day closed with me lying in bed. I said kaddish, a Jewish prayer for the dead that I Googled. After, I made a pact with myself. If I can, I will go to another Auschwitz milestone in the future on behalf of the diminishing survivors and I will lead the campaign for my generation and generations after to not forget.

The support of all of you is wonderful, but one comment really stuck with me. My friend Sam thanked me for my work in this field. I had never been thanked so genuinely for doing something I'm passionate about and that comment made my day as did the countless other messages of support.

Thank you.

Auschwitz 70 Commemorative Letter

To all my Facebook friends,

Tomorrow (or tonight) I urge each one of you to take a little bit of time out of your very fulfilling life and remember what this day is all about. January 27th is a very important day to us as a people because we cannot forget that atrocity is all around us, especially in the times we live. January 27th is a day for reflection and to remember the lives lost, not just in the Holocaust, but in any genocide whether it's the Native American genocide or the recent genocides in Rwanda or Cambodia. Genocide is one of the world's saddest concepts and it's such a big concept that we can barely begin to understand it and if we try it crushes us.

I am an ameuter Holocaust historian as you all well know. Some ask why I like this period of time, and honestly that isn't the right word to use and it almost comes off as inappropriate. I don't like this time period at all. I think the acts committed by the Nazis during this period were so unspeakable that no word can sum them up properly. I study this time period because I think the past holds a key to the future. If we repeat the past then we won't have a better future; and like children we won't learn from the mistakes we made in the past and we keep making them. Some people ask me if the Holocaust has affected me directly and the answer is actually yes and it continues to affect me to this day. I am disabled, and the Nazis killed people like me. The Holocaust is wrongly believed by many to be solely part of Jewish history, but it's really a part of world history because countless other groups like Poles, disabled people, homosexuals, political enemies, etc were also targeted in the Nazis' program to purify Europe as they saw fit. I am not Jewish but my best friend is and I can't imagine anyone hurting her or her family. The world needs to realize that the Holocaust holds importance to every person and not just the Jews. If gentiles don't help our Jewish friends with the campaign to remember we will have come nowhere from where we were in the war when most looked the other way.

That is unacceptable.

So why is Auschwitz 70 so significant? We still have survivors with us today but it saddens me that they are slowly diminishing. There will come a time soon when no survivors will be able to gather at Auschwitz like they are doing tomorrow. When that time comes it will be up to us to go on their behalf. It will be up to us to say, "I will not forget. I stand with the victims and survivors to remember." So I ask each one of you to take a minute out of your day to reflect, light a candle, or even just spread the word about why January 27th is so important. I know a whole generation of people that your acknowledgment of tomorrow's significance will mean the world to.

I will say Never Forget and Never Again not just tomorrow but every day. I hope you will as well too.

Thank you for your time.