The Day of Remembrance
Today is May 1st! MAY DAY! A day to celebrate Spring and new life! Time to whip out the baskets of flowers, dust off the maypole, time to go dance and sing and celebrate that winter is over, the hard times are done, and life continues in its merry process.
Today is also The Day of Remembrance. The day the U.N. has asked we take a few moments from our merry-making to remember that all is not always as it was. Today we are asked to pause and remember those murdered in the Holocaust of World War II. Over six million Jews were murdered through gunshots, medical experiments, being gassed and burned in ovens, worked to death, starved to death, or just murdered of broken hearts. Add to that the Romani that were murdered, the handicapped and elderly, the sympathizers, and the number climbs to a staggering almost 7.5 million people.
People. Just like us. Girls who were writing in their journals suddenly found their homes invaded by men in uniform with guns, were dragged away from everything they knew, starved and beaten to death. (You're all thinking Anne Frank: for the record, she died of Typhus the day before Auschwitz was liberated.) Guys who were asleep in bed, like Lion, with their pets at their feet, dragged out into the streets without so much as shoes, pjs, or their morning coffee. Forced to march, forced into box cars, forced to never see their families again.
Today we need to remember. We need to pause in the celebration of life and realize just how lucky we are. We are lucky because of the color of our hair, because of the color of our skin, our eyes, the country of birth, the sexual preferences we might have. WE ARE THE LUCKY ONES. So it's up to us to remember, to honor, to protect those who are not like us.
Today, Lion and I are going to read one of my shorter books on the subject of the Holocaust. I ask that you find some time to do something similar. You don't have to pick up the gigantic Shindler's Legacy, but you could read Tales from the Warsaw Ghetto, or The Cat with the Yellow Star (an absolutely brilliant and true children's book), or one of the books that always hit my heart, even though it's fiction, Number The Stars by Lois Lowry.
If you don't have the time today to read a book, pick up a movie. While I'll be the first to recommend Shindler's List there are thousands of others out there (Swing Kids is one I recommend to anyone with children, as the violence is minor but the message strikes true). It doesn't have to be the story of Anne Frank: rent one of the videos from the SHOAH Foundation. (They're free on demand until the fifth or so.) They only last an hour or two, and they are the survivor's own words, own stories. They are the hard-core reality of what happened.
Mietek Pemper was the secretary for Amon Goeth (Lord Voldemort's character in Shindler's List, as Lion is so wont to remind me). What he wrote in his biography rings true, today and every other day of the year. He said:
"For the sake of our future we must not forget what happened. We cannot escape history. Mankind will only progress when the principle of individual responsibility becomes the golden rule, when refusal to play along becomes a virtue, and blind obedience loses its currency. We are all responsible for creating a better future. That includes accepting the "other", the "foreigner," in our midst." (The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler's List)
We have to take responsibility for what happened, for what is happening, today, in Darfur, in Libya. What we learned from the first Holocaust was the definition of genocide, the true measure of when mankind MUST step in and take responsibility for the actions of others, when the strong must defend the weak. What we learned in Rwanda was how to define genocide. How to be afraid of it, how to protect ourselves from it. And that's not the point. The point is to STOP IT. Genocide is NOT OKAY. No matter who you are or where you're from. We must rise up to save the innocent.
We are responsible for the generations to come. For the life we bring to this planet, and the life we take away, either by inaction or ignorance. Don't be ignorant about this. Take a moment, today of all days of the year, to educate yourself. Watch a movie, read a book, make it a family educational day. And, when you're done, thank god for every moment of life and freedom you have left. Teach those around you to be grateful for every second of it, because all it takes is one careless mind to take it all away, forever.
Happy May Day.
Today is also The Day of Remembrance. The day the U.N. has asked we take a few moments from our merry-making to remember that all is not always as it was. Today we are asked to pause and remember those murdered in the Holocaust of World War II. Over six million Jews were murdered through gunshots, medical experiments, being gassed and burned in ovens, worked to death, starved to death, or just murdered of broken hearts. Add to that the Romani that were murdered, the handicapped and elderly, the sympathizers, and the number climbs to a staggering almost 7.5 million people.
People. Just like us. Girls who were writing in their journals suddenly found their homes invaded by men in uniform with guns, were dragged away from everything they knew, starved and beaten to death. (You're all thinking Anne Frank: for the record, she died of Typhus the day before Auschwitz was liberated.) Guys who were asleep in bed, like Lion, with their pets at their feet, dragged out into the streets without so much as shoes, pjs, or their morning coffee. Forced to march, forced into box cars, forced to never see their families again.
Today we need to remember. We need to pause in the celebration of life and realize just how lucky we are. We are lucky because of the color of our hair, because of the color of our skin, our eyes, the country of birth, the sexual preferences we might have. WE ARE THE LUCKY ONES. So it's up to us to remember, to honor, to protect those who are not like us.
Today, Lion and I are going to read one of my shorter books on the subject of the Holocaust. I ask that you find some time to do something similar. You don't have to pick up the gigantic Shindler's Legacy, but you could read Tales from the Warsaw Ghetto, or The Cat with the Yellow Star (an absolutely brilliant and true children's book), or one of the books that always hit my heart, even though it's fiction, Number The Stars by Lois Lowry.
If you don't have the time today to read a book, pick up a movie. While I'll be the first to recommend Shindler's List there are thousands of others out there (Swing Kids is one I recommend to anyone with children, as the violence is minor but the message strikes true). It doesn't have to be the story of Anne Frank: rent one of the videos from the SHOAH Foundation. (They're free on demand until the fifth or so.) They only last an hour or two, and they are the survivor's own words, own stories. They are the hard-core reality of what happened.
Mietek Pemper was the secretary for Amon Goeth (Lord Voldemort's character in Shindler's List, as Lion is so wont to remind me). What he wrote in his biography rings true, today and every other day of the year. He said:
"For the sake of our future we must not forget what happened. We cannot escape history. Mankind will only progress when the principle of individual responsibility becomes the golden rule, when refusal to play along becomes a virtue, and blind obedience loses its currency. We are all responsible for creating a better future. That includes accepting the "other", the "foreigner," in our midst." (The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler's List)
We have to take responsibility for what happened, for what is happening, today, in Darfur, in Libya. What we learned from the first Holocaust was the definition of genocide, the true measure of when mankind MUST step in and take responsibility for the actions of others, when the strong must defend the weak. What we learned in Rwanda was how to define genocide. How to be afraid of it, how to protect ourselves from it. And that's not the point. The point is to STOP IT. Genocide is NOT OKAY. No matter who you are or where you're from. We must rise up to save the innocent.
We are responsible for the generations to come. For the life we bring to this planet, and the life we take away, either by inaction or ignorance. Don't be ignorant about this. Take a moment, today of all days of the year, to educate yourself. Watch a movie, read a book, make it a family educational day. And, when you're done, thank god for every moment of life and freedom you have left. Teach those around you to be grateful for every second of it, because all it takes is one careless mind to take it all away, forever.
Happy May Day.