We write 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 faith in God. By order of the German government, millions of Jews were systematically annihilated. That adds up to the murder of millions of” undesirables. “additional (gypsies, homosexuals, political prisoners, Russian prisoners, criminals, etc.) The German government used these innocent people as scapegoats to distract the citizens of Europe from the military conquest that was already underway.
Just consider the plight of European Jews during the period called “Shoah” (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 dead. They were not given an injection to accelerate their path to painless death. They were exterminated, like pesky 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 infirm, the weak, and children were often the first to enter the gas chambers. Resistant men and women were barely living for their value as forced labor. Those able to 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 were also killed.
My mother experienced brutal anti-Semitism 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 flourished in America. However, most of his remaining family died in the Holocaust. So genocide is close to my heart. I hold it for eternity, like an uncomfortable stone stuck 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 cannot tell this story without revealing the Holocaust in every possible way. It is a terrible 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 disconnect from the soulful world with movies, laptops, and television? However, the deaths of six million innocent people MUST be counted. If not, there would be nothing to prevent more genocide, and more after that! Everyone must hear this tragedy. Otherwise, our progeny could embrace the worst in human nature.
This does not detract from the importance of other Holocausts. The 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, rather than fear 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 emotional examination of morality. Human beings are neither good nor bad, but good and bad. We surround ourselves with romance and comedy, playing with the healthier parts of our emotional identity. However, 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 horrendous genocide in history. For three years, I investigated 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 furthest extent 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 omnipresent battlefield of virtue against malevolence. We are not one or the other, but a combination of both. We are beautiful and ugly, reassuring and terrifying, brutal and loving, kind and wicked; we love and despise.
Deep in the fear and panic of the Holocaust were the 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. The victims and survivors of the Holocaust provide us with the human response to terror. Innocent people, like you and me, were reduced to tasteless objects, used as slaves, and then wiped out. The German government used propaganda to teach all of Europe that Jews were “vermin”. An entire generation of Germans was taught that Jews were dangerous and should be exterminated. Unfortunately, many Europeans were too eager to agree to this propaganda. They happily participated in reuniting Jewish families (Einsatzgruppen) and handing them over to the SS, who placed them in concentration camps. Almost none of the Jews survived, including the women and children.
At the same time, despite their enslavement in ghettos and concentration camps, the Jews of Europe experienced the fascinating beauty of passionate young love and the driving power of religious devotion. After all, they were still human beings. Being incarcerated in a concentration camp did not prevent Jewish victims from experiencing the world of normal emotions. Instead, he added a nightmare dose of terror, horror, and fear. Our lives are complex, even within the conspicuous trap of the Holocaust. Not all of the imprisoned Jews were innocent victims. Not all Germans were rabid anti-Semites, bent on destroying 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 gray, especially during the Holocaust. In the midst of a terrible and indescribable anguish, there was beauty. Within the beauty, there was despair. And, while many Jews worshiped God in the abyss of the Holocaust, some condemned it. While it might be easy to claim that God works in mysterious ways, how can such conviction be focused when the veneer of all the good in life has been removed? How can one continue to love a God who allows the murder of every innocent loved one, a deity who allows blameless people and children to be starved, beaten, tortured, denigrated, disfigured and emotionally destroyed? Could the Shoah have been the ultimate test of faith?
The Holocaust survivors lost everything, but perhaps somehow they also gained something. Certainly an honest examination of the Holocaust must reveal excruciating brutality and death. Most of the Holocaust survivors lost all their loved ones. The façade of life’s beauty was stripped away, revealing an incomprehensible abyss of revulsion. Yet here, in the depths of horror, the Jews of the Holocaust collided with a wall and kept running. Despite the onslaught of evil, faced with certain death, these Jews manufactured a fantasy world for their children. Deep in the gruesome concentration camps of Nazi Germany, the Jews of Europe continued to practice their religion, teaching their children and loving one another. Here, between 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 faced the most perfidious forces. Deception, brutality, cruelty, disease, starvation and the death of loved ones were the daily companions of the victims of the Shoah. Yet in the midst of utter despair, there was life, love, passion, desire, religious fervor, and the emotion that only children know. Even in such desperate desolation, there was love of God, infatuation, romance, passion, and longing for all the things humans yearn for. The Jews fabricated their ethnicity to the rhythm of the slow and steady march towards the gas chambers. They refused to allow relocation and the threat of death to tear the fabric of Jewish society. They created schools, orchestras, sporting events, synagogue and prayer, weddings and funerals, dances and theater, study groups and debates; Jews were sent to every hell; they took their Jewish lifestyle and values with them. Instead of giving in to the Nazis, Jews trapped in ghettos and concentration camps bravely maintained their culture. Religious holidays were observed as if it were any other year. Even when observing the rituals of Judaism was forbidden, the victims of the Holocaust found a way to pray and perform the duties of a Jew. Some of the most ardent examples of constructive human nature can be found in these dire moments of the Holocaust.
Hidden Jews from the SS, the ghetto, and the concentration camps observed all required covenants and rituals, including prayer services on the Sabbath and during major holidays, marriage ceremonies, burials, and circumcisions. Along the sinister, terrifying and unforgiving journey to the gas chambers of Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews lived, loved, learned, and died, behaving as if their lives continued unabated. In their darkest moments, the Jews of the Shoah fabricated a “normal” life for their progeny. Despite their impending mortality, they created an ordinary world inside to protect their children from the raging genocide outside. Such was the nature of their love, faith, and devotion. In fact, this adoration transcended parental affection. In the gas chambers and crematoria of Nazi-controlled Europe, Holocaust Jews emptied 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 evil flaws. Deep in the darkest corners of the brutal genocide, we discover a faint flash of light that represents love, passion, desire, hope, adoration, and reverence. Here is the essence of humanity: a flash of light that represents morality, faith, love and righteousness, amid the dark whirlwind of malevolence. But it is not enough that we understand the Holocaust. Our progeny must understand it too. Otherwise, it could happen again.
That is why we must always tell the stories of the Holocaust. Such stories represent the worst of human slander and the insurmountable limits of our compassion. The Holocaust stories teach us how to recognize the worst examples of humanity, but also the benefits of a workable 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.
