Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day
Today commemorates the Nazis’ highly organized effort to rid the world of its entire Jewish population.
They managed to rid the world of most of its European Jews: six million Jews were gassed, shot or died in the ghettos and in concentration camps before the Nazis were stopped in 1945.
One would think that the lessons supposedly learned from the Holocaust would ensure that the world would not tolerate another genocide, but the latter part of the twentieth century proved that genocides were still possible and that the world was not quick to intervene and bring an end to them.
For my grandmother Miep, who is 92 years old and a Holocaust survivor, every day is Holocaust Remembrance Day. She and my late grandfather Arie were in their twenties when Holland became occupied by the Nazis. They managed to escape the Nazis for more than a year, hiding in different places, until, in their last hiding place, a neighbor turned them in. They spent a horrible year in Tereisenstadt concentration camp, stripped of all human dignity, and separated from their daughter, my aunt, Elizabeth. Grandma lost both her parents and many other family members, almost died of typhus, and still has nightmares every single night.
The word ‘holocaust’ comes from the ancient Greek word for ’sacrifice by fire’. In the 19th century it was used to refer to mass slaughter, especially by fire. The mass killing of Jews by Nazis was referred to as ‘this holocaust’ in the British parliament in 1943, and by the 1950s the name was widely applied. In Hebrew, we call it ‘the Shoah’, which means ‘the catastrophe’.
Sources:
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Alik Levin | Practice This responds:
Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 5:59 am →
thank you.
Jill responds:
Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 8:42 am →
This is a difficult day for my family too. Thank you for this post.
Jessica K responds:
Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 8:56 am →
Thank you for the reminder. It is unreal to me that something like that could happen in this day and time, but as you said, it still does. My heart goes out to your grandparents.
MomGrind responds:
Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 9:00 pm →
@ Jessica: thank you. My heart goes out to them too.
JEMi | Tips for Life, Love, You responds:
Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 am →
Thank you for this..
Becky responds:
Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 9:17 am →
My grandfather, a physician, fought in the war and was among the first to liberate the concentration camps. He never spoke of the horrors that he saw.
MomGrind responds:
Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm →
@ Becky: my grandparents told us things that I just can’t repeat. They were assigned “jobs” at the concentration camp and trust me, I wish I didn’t know what they did there. It’s horrible.
castocreations responds:
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 10:06 am →
I hope your grandmother has recorded her experiences in that horrible war. It galls and disgusts me that there are people today who do not believe it actually happened. We are losing more and more of those who survived to time and we need their stories preserved for history and proof that it WAS REAL!
I’ve always been fascinated and horrified by this period in history. I met a survivor from Sobibor (sp?) in the 7th grade. It had a profound influence. As awful as the things that happened to your grandparents it is so important to share their experience with others.
Have you been to the Holocaust museum. It is so powerful. How anyone could discount or “play down” the tragedy is beyond the scope of my mind.
MomGrind responds:
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 10:15 am →
@ castocreations: thank you for your thoughtful comment. I’ve been to Yad Va’shem in Jerusalem which was a difficult, and important, experience for me.
http://www.yadvashem.org/
Unfortunately, my grandparents refused to give a lot of details about their experiences in the Holocaust. I think it was just too hard fro them.