Tragically, people can be accustomed to anything. Even the most bestial act can become acceptable if it is repeated long enough. I remember speaking at Oxford University some years ago. There were many students from all parts of the world. Following my talk a young man approached me.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Poland,” he answered.
“Where in Poland?”
“Actually, I was born in Auschwitz.”
“Auschwitz?” I repeated in shock. “How could you be from Auschwitz?”
I took it for granted he was a Jew, a survivor.
“Were you actually born in Auschwitz? How did you survive? How old are you? You are much too young to have been born in Auschwitz. How about your parents? Where are they from?”
I kept asking him questions, all the while gazing at him in disbelief. To my mind, Auschwitz was a death camp. But now this young man told me it was a village where people lived.
It took some time for me to absorb this information. Somehow I never visualized people actually living in Auschwitz.
“I hope you won’t mind if I ask you a personal question,” I said.
“No problem,” he replied.
“Did you ever ask your grandparents or parents how they felt when they heard the shrieks, the screaming, the cries of Jews? Did you ever ask how they felt when they smelled the stench of burning flesh?”
He thought for a moment and said, “No I never asked that question. That’s just how things were. But come to think of it, I did hear some discussions of Jews having to be killed.”
Fast forward to 2015. Christians and even Muslims are being slaughtered by ISIS. And with the exception of some air strikes against limited ISIS targets, the world is once again standing by silently as innocent lives are gruesomely ended.
Meanwhile, Holocaust denial, while still not mainstream, has made startling inroads thanks to the Internet, as the lies of neo-Nazis are only a click away for anyone searching the web. Even people who are not haters are nevertheless increasingly uncomfortable when the Holocaust is brought up.
“Why dwell on the past?” they ask. “The world has always had its tragedies – what makes the Holocaust different from the others?”
More reprehensible still is that many of our own people are either ignorant or unwilling to learn.
I have been told on many occasions – by Jews –“Rebbetzin, please don’t speak on the Holocaust. We don’t want to cry. Please share with us a positive message.”
So the unbelievable has happened. We, the Jewish people, have fallen victim to the trap of amnesia. It’s a trap because he who forgets history is destined to repeat it. And that is the tragedy of our generation.
(To be continued)