The Holocaust

We spell the Holocaust with a capital “H” because it represents the most devastating example of genocide in history. It was not “a” holocaust, but “THE” Holocaust, because millions of innocent people were exterminated for their belief in God. By order of the German government, millions of Jews were systematically annihilated. That is in addition to the murder of millions of additional “undesirables” (gypsies, homosexuals, political prisoners, Russian prisoners, criminals, etc.) The German government used these innocent people as scapegoats to distract the citizens of Europe from military conquest. which was already underway.

Consider only the plight of European Jews during the so-called “Shoah” period (the Holocaust), from 1933 to the end of World War II in 1945). The vast majority of these Jews were not given a quick death. They were not hanged or shot. They did not receive an injection to speed their way to a painless death. They were exterminated, like annoying insects. They were gassed to death, because that was the most efficient way to get rid of six million men, women, and children, who turned out to be Jews.

By the way they praised God; six million innocent people were killed. Women, the elderly, the sick, the frail, and children were often the first to enter the gas chambers. Strong men and women were barely kept alive for their value as forced labor. Those who could work were employed as slaves for the benefit of the German military and industrialists. Some of those German companies exist today, albeit under different names. Some still have the same name. When there was no more work, they too were killed.

My mother experienced brutal antisemitism as a child in Russia. I heard many stories about the brutal Cossacks who persecuted the Jews in the cities and towns of Ukraine. My mother and her sisters barely survived and then thrived in the United States. However, most of her remaining family perished in the Holocaust. So genocide is close to my heart. I hold it for eternity, like a cumbersome stone attached to my soul. It is a load of remarkable proportions. My ancestors cry out for justice. They want you to know what happened to them and their children. But I can’t tell this story without revealing the Holocaust in every possible way. It is a terrifying and beautiful story, full of heroes and villains.

Why would anyone want to think about the Holocaust today, particularly when they could listen to their iPod or tune out the moving world with movies, laptops, and TV? However, the deaths of six million innocent people MUST be counted. If not, there would be nothing to prevent more genocides, and more after that! Everyone should listen to this tragedy. Otherwise, our progeny could embrace the worst of human nature.

This does not diminish the importance of other Holocausts. Those innocent people who were killed in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur were equally innocent. When will society stop fearing those who are different? When will we learn to value the differences between us, instead of fearing them? When will we stop ostracizing people because of their religion, race or ethnic heritage? When will governments and individuals stop using minorities as scapegoats? After all, this is the 21st century! We are better than that. We must be better than that.

I appreciate books that offer a frank and moving examination of morality. Human beings are not good or bad, but good and bad. We surround ourselves with romance and comedy, playing with the healthiest parts of our emotional identity. Yet disgust, despair, and darkness exist within human nature. We don’t learn anything about ourselves if we don’t examine the dark side of our psyche.

I explored how humans behaved during the most brutal and horrific genocide in history. For three years, I researched the Holocaust on a daily basis. If any benefit can come from the Shoah (Holocaust), it is that we can examine and learn from the fullest measure of human depravity. We can measure their immorality, degeneracy, and wickedness. However, humans are complex beings. There is much more to our nature than the ever-present battleground of virtue against malevolence. We are neither one nor the other, but a combination of both. We are beautiful and ugly, calming and terrifying, brutal and affectionate, kind and wicked; we love and despise.

Deep in the fear and panic of the Holocaust were immensely critical decisions about ethical behavior and our concept of morality. Unlike animals, humans are governed by principles, ethical beliefs, and the power of truthfulness. We are not clouded by delusions of integrity, but governed by them. Holocaust victims and survivors provide us with the human response to terror. Innocent people, like you and me, were reduced to ugly objects, used as slaves, and then annihilated. The German government used propaganda to teach all of Europe that the Jews were “vermin.” A whole generation of Germans was taught that the Jews were dangerous and must be exterminated. Unfortunately, many Europeans were too eager to go along with this propaganda. They gleefully participated in rounding up Jewish families (Einsatzgruppen) and handing them over to the SS, who placed them in concentration camps. Almost none of the Jews survived, including women and children.

At the same time, despite their slavery in ghettos and concentration camps, the Jews of Europe experienced the seductive beauty of young, passionate love and the driving power of religious devotion. After all, they were still human beings. Being incarcerated in a concentration camp did not prevent the Jewish victims from experiencing the world of normal emotions. Instead, he added a nightmarish dose of terror, horror, and fear. Our lives are complex, even within the conspicuous trappings of the Holocaust. Not all imprisoned Jews were innocent victims. Not all Germans were rabid anti-Semites, bent on the destruction of the Jewish “race.” Life was and is much more complex.

In reality, the world is rarely seen in black and white, or even shades of grey, especially during the Holocaust. In the midst of a terrible, indescribable anguish, there was beauty. Within the beauty, there was despair. And, while many Jews in the Holocaust abyss worshiped God, some condemned God. While it may be easy to claim that God works in mysterious ways, how can one approach such a conviction when all the veneer of all that is good in life has been stripped away? How to continue to love a God who allows the murder of every innocent loved one, a deity who allows innocent people and children to be starved, beaten, tortured, denigrated, disfigured and emotionally destroyed? Could the Shoah have been the ultimate test of faith?

Holocaust survivors lost everything, but perhaps they also gained something in some way. Indeed, an honest examination of the Holocaust must reveal torturous brutality and death. Most Holocaust survivors lost all their loved ones. The facade of life’s beauty was stripped away, revealing an incomprehensible abyss of disgust. Yet here, in the bowels of horror, the Jews of the Holocaust ran into a wall and continued to run. Despite the onslaught of evil, facing certain death, these Jews fabricated an imaginary world for their children. Deep in the gruesome concentration camps of Nazi Germany, Europe’s Jews continued to practice their religion, teach their children, and love one another. Here, among the gas chambers and crematoria, one can feel the hope for the survival of the human spirit. Those unique individuals who maintained their Jewish identity in the Holocaust rise like a fabulous phoenix from the ashes of annihilation.

Those poor souls caught up in the terror of the Holocaust stood up to the most perfidious forces. Deceit, brutality, cruelty, disease, starvation, and the death of loved ones were the daily companions of the victims of the Shoah. However, in the midst of utter despair, there was life, love, passion, desire, religious fervor and the emotion that only children know. Even in such hopeless desolation, there was love for God, infatuation, romance, passion, and longing for all things humans long for. The Jews fabricated their ethnicity to the rhythm of the slow and steady march to the gas chambers. They refused to allow the fabric of Jewish society to be torn apart by relocation and the threat of disappearance. They created schools, orchestras, sporting events, synagogues and prayers, weddings and funerals, dances and theater, study groups and debates; Jews were sent to all hells; they took their Jewish lifestyle and values ​​with them. Rather than give in to the Nazis, Jews trapped in ghettos and concentration camps bravely maintained their culture. Religious festivals were observed as if it were another year. Even when it was forbidden to observe the rituals of Judaism, Holocaust victims found a way to pray and fulfill the duties of a Jew. Some of the most fiery examples of constructive human nature can be found in these terrifying moments of the Holocaust.

Hidden from the SS, the Jews in the ghettos and concentration camps observed all the required pacts and rituals, including prayer services on the Sabbath and during major holidays, marriage ceremonies, burials, and circumcisions. Along the sinister, terrifying, and unforgiving road to the gas chambers of Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews lived, loved, learned, and died, behaving as if their lives went on endlessly. In their darkest moments, the Jews of the Shoah manufactured a “normal” life for their offspring. Despite their impending death, they created an ordinary world inside to protect their children from the raging genocide outside. Such was the nature of his love, faith and devotion. In fact, this worship transcended parental affection. In the gas chambers and crematoria of Nazi-controlled Europe, the Jews of the Holocaust poured out their faith and love, while continuing to worship the God of their ancestors.

The human spirit fights for autonomy and freedom. However, to appreciate human nature, one must descend into the depths of depravity and terror. We cannot understand humanity without understanding its wicked flaws. Deep within the darkest corners of brutal genocide, we discover a faint flicker of light that represents love, passion, desire, hope, adoration, and reverence. Here is the essence of humanity: a flash of light representing morality, faith, love and righteousness, amidst the dark whirlwind of malevolence. But it is not enough that we understand the Holocaust. Our progeny must also understand this. Otherwise, it could happen again.

That is why we must always tell the stories of the Holocaust. Such stories represent the worst of human vilification and the insurmountable limits of our compassion. Holocaust stories teach us to recognize the worst examples of humanity, but also the benefits of viable morality. The terror of genocide is not necessarily an inevitable human outcome. We must learn from the mistakes of our past, instead of repeating them. As long as we teach our children about the Holocaust, there is hope that it will never happen again.