The Grim 75th Anniversary #blogboost

I'm forming a bad habit - blogging about topics the day after, or even a week after, I should be.

Today's going to be a somewhat grim topic - the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet troops, yesterday, on Holocaust Day.

World leaders gathered, along with some 200 survivors of the camp, where historians estimate 1.1 million people died (or were murdered) between 1940 and 1945.  Consider this:  this was out of an estimated 1.3 million people sent to the camp.  Men, women, children.  Most were Jewish but there were also Roma, non-Jewish Polish, Soviet prisoners of war - anyone the Nazis decided didn't deserve to live.  Those who weren't killed upon arrival were registered, tattooed and sent into forced labor.

I looked into the faces of some of the survivors as they walked into the camp.  Some had been back after it was turned into a museum and historical site.  Some had never returned until yesterday.  Many of them are afraid of the tide of hate that is growing daily.  They've seen it happen before.  They need to be our voices of experiene.

I grew up in the 1950's Bronx among adults who survived the Holocaust.  Some were in concentration camps. They never spoke of it but we, the children, somehow knew. I wasn't shielded from many of the terrible details of what happened, either.  It was part of my heritage.  Although both my parents were born and always lived in the United States, I am aware that the town where my maternal grandfather came from was wiped off the map by the Nazis and that one of my uncles, who never immigrated to the United States, most likely perished in the Holocaust.


If you ever read the story of a Holocaust survivor with a tattoo, that person had spent time at Auschwitz, because Auschwitz was the only camp that tattooed its prisoners..  And the fictionalized story of that tattooist (based on interviews with the elderly tattooist) is a fascinating read.

The story of Auschwitz is both horrifying and complex.  What we know as "Auschwitz" was actually a combination of several camps built at different times.

So, why should we care?  Should we care because the hate that led to what we call the Holocaust still exists today, and is resurging?  That's one good reason.  Should we care because more people every day seem to doubt that the Holocaust either never happened or did happen but was way exaggerated?  Perhaps that is even a more urgent issue.

Why would people deny history?  Or worse, feel that "the job" wasn't completed and it's up to them to complete it?

Consider this:  most of the survivors of the camp who participated in the ceremonies were not adults when they were prisoners.  So these are the last, and in not too many years, they will all be gone.

The witnesses will be gone.  Then what?

There have been many genocides in history. This was a huge one, but just one of many.  We've tried hard to keep the memory of this one alive but these efforts seem to be going sideways now.

We must say "never again".  To anyone.

Day 28 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost