ALWAYS to REMEMBER, NEVER to FORGET.
History has taught us little if we choose not to Remember the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Innocent Jews, Men, Women and Their Children in The Holocaust. We must always look toward a future that has been garnered from our past with the correct lessons to be learned. Tolerance for one another is specific to human beings and an Indifference to that Moral grounding has been widespread throughout our History! We choose to Forget at our peril because there is no guarantee that when intolerances surface, they will be directed only toward those Never exempted from Genocides, Hatreds and for those 6,000,000 of The Holocaust of The Jews of Europe, Memory must serve them Now!
We know in terms of the meaning of Tolerance, it is such a wonderful trait to be found in people. It not only broadens the Christian perception that all are born equal under God but conserves within Humanity a moral and ethical efficacy. Whether that God we speak of is the God of my own Church or whatever House of God is to be occupied by people, creation makes us all God’s Children. We might have disputes with each other over the inflection of our belief systems or even from within our own Faith but we can resolve them all with Care, with Compassion and with more than a modicum of our own Christian Charity! We are aware from The Holocaust that many individuals stood against the tide of discrimination and paid for so doing with the ultimate penalty. What we know, and when in time they had dispatched the 6,000,000 Murdered Jewish People, there were many who knew they could be next! Martin Niemuller knew! Gypsies knew! The Polish People knew! Yet, in the midst of such an intolerable burden placed upon the Jews of Europe, few responded to this hatred with any Moral value or Ethical resolve.
We know that the Genesis of the Jewish Destruction was the germ of Hitler’s hatred for them. I owe this considered assessment in great part to Raul Hilberg who undertook a study still salient to this day. Hilberg’s ambient words resonate with many of us who still seek to comprehend the enormity of the Genocide and wish to add to the historical dimension of the Destruction facing the Jews of Europe! Hitler decided that at first the Jews would be removed from the sphere of all German life! To that end they were taken out from the work place and social environment and ostracised. The Jews would then be removed from the very presence of German life by physical means. They would be railroaded, shipped into established and created Ghettos and out of sight of those local communities who might be burdened by any statement that compassion might demand! This segregation was fully achieved until finally, All Jews would be systematically removed from the very vestiges of any Life at all.
The holding stations, the Ghettos, the Concentration and Labour Camps, the Towns, Villages, Cities of Europe, were combed so thoroughly, few escaped the dragnet that Hitler had established. The establishment of The Death Camp system was that final staging post which now spelled out the Death and Destruction of all the Jews of Europe. It must be borne in mind that while all of Hitler’s institutions dealt in the death and destruction of The Jews of Europe, it was from within the 6 Death Camps of Auschwitz/Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka whose sole purpose was the Annihilation of The Jewish People, that the achievement was managed on an industrial scale. While not all victims were Jews, as Elie Wiesel points out so succinctly, ALL Jews were Victims!
