It was only seventy years ago that my Jewish paternal grandfather who fought in the Great War of 1914-1918 as a French soldier was asked to bring his bicycle and his radio to the local police station. It was only seventy years ago that my mother was forced to wear a yellow star on all of her garments when she left her house. It was only seventy years ago that the Gestapo snatched her dad from under her eyes in the summer of 1942 to send him to Auschwitz where he perished with the rest of the 6,000,000.
The Holocaust left an indelible stain on the Jewish psyche and much baggage on a large cross-section of the global community. It cannot be forgotten, it cannot be avoided, and yet if we are honest with ourselves, it cannot really be explained.
As if the numbers were not horrendous enough, a recent series of documents released by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) after years of further research showed that original death estimates were way off.
How can the horrors of the Holocaust be any worse than what had been gathered for the last seventy years? The new findings are absolutely mind boggling as the team of researchers just reported:
“There were more than 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe from 1933 to 1945.
We know that the Holocaust is far from being a myth, yet we might not be so far from it becoming a myth. Wake up people!
* These new numbers include all people not just the Jewish people.
How very true—the rapid development of communication has reduced our levels of thoughtful discourse to fewer and fewer words, the “dumbing down” of our society. Americans are awash in every kind of entertainment, sports, gaming, etc. to benumb them from what is happening in the world at large.
As for those who ignorantly deny the holocaust, in spite of irrefutable physical evidence, shame on them! As Martin Niemoller was addressing a church on January 6, 1946, he said:
“When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent; I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”
Those who are Holocaust deniers do not realize they are denying the deaths of millions of human beings—what kind of human beings are they? They surely have hearts of stone.
Shocking!! As if 6 million wasn’t bad enough! I’m so glad it is fully documented and photographed but, as you say, if the younger generations are not being taught, I fear that history is bound to repeat itself. I pray the Lord will return before that happens but the bible says that 2/3rds of the Jews will die in the next and last one. Are you ready?
When I was a kid in the ’80’s our middle school showed us the movie, “The Diary of Anne Frank”. My children are 8 and 10 and both have seen it too. We also have the book on our shelf. Every Christian house should have the movie and book. The world is too concerned about proving the existance of dinosaurs rather than learning from history. If we ignore it, it will repeat itself.