Never Again.
“..I would like to talk about names not on behalf of ..Survivors ..as they can speak for themselves but on behalf of ..dead ..even though I was not authorized by them to do so. Firstly ..about ..name of ..day on ..eve of which we are gathered here ..Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day ..a title chosen in ..early years of ..State of Israel. This name implies that The Holocaust of 6,000,000 People ..and ..heroism of those who took up arms ..rebels ..partisans ..are two separate entities ..which they are not. ..heroism is at ..heart of The Holocaust ..an inseparable part of it. ..heroism of ..Mothers who stayed with their Children instead of saving themselves ..of ..Sons ..Daughters who refused to abandon their parents ..of ..Doctors ..Nurses who took care of ..sick despite ..terrible risk to their own lives ..heroism of every single person who tried to alleviate ..suffering of another ..of every person who struggled to stay alive till ..bitter end.” Ruth Bondi.
I have sought the recognition of all Jews, no matter their status, as victims first and last and never as other than as compelled by human nature, to be humanely responsibility for those they were charged to stand alongside. The struggle to stay alive is, for those who have a god, a demand which will secure life to the bitter end of those too close to embracing a finality at the hands of others. So please allow me to introduce myself again, to both those who know me, and those yet to understand the meaning I wish to bring forward for 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. I had begun this odyssey many years ago and have become enriched in so many ways by my journey. In the very beginning, there were many who accused me of seeking only to profit from the Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews. The Publisher who took the risk explained in no uncertain terms, there is no financial profiting in The Holocaust, and through my work I had been enabled to purchase those Books, and those witnesses, the Jewish Survivor in particular, for whom I deemed it necessary to add to my search.
“..Souls afire ..like ..blazing sun ..tearing ..breaking through their pain ..for soon we’ll see that waving flag ..flag of freedom yet to come.” Joseph Wulf.
However, I am unable to give 24/7 to my research, my work or indeed those words necessary to compile my effort, as other needs are as compelling to life itself. Literally, I have met every single target I have set myself, and because of many of you, I have been allowed to ensure more of my Books are Published. My 3 Book deal has been turned into 5 Books now, because of that purchasing power which convinces business to do so. I am closing in upon my 6th. Book, and this is only possible for as long as you are willing to pledge, read and order them as a future memorial to why I continue to write on behalf of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. Since I have concentrated my research, I now know more intimately, many within the 6,000,000 who delivered up their names to Me, to You and for Us. I have gained more and more from looking back toward Tovah ‘Tokele’ Olshak, who I regard highly as an inspiration toward my efforts, at Anne Frank, for Etty Hillesum, because of Lucy S. Dawidowicz, with Yitzhak Arad, and alongside Yehuda Bauer, and so many others too numerous to mention.
“..I was put to work as ..permanent camp cook ..I took on my Son as an assistant. ..rest of ..100 who arrived that first night gradually all were killed. ..next transport came from Zolkiew and Izbica. 70 people from that transport were designated to work in Camp.” Hersz Cukierman.
On each and every media platform, upon which I have laid my own foundation to The Holocaust, I have found bitterness and hatred. Also, and there are many other People who are just like you, and who I would gladly call my Friends, who allow me to swerve past the bile, the hatred and the distortion, to continually concentrate upon an effort that is so consumed by the intolerances already shown to those 6,000,000 Jews I wish to present to all. Today, it is more important than ever to connect back to what ‘Never Again’ must mean as we search for both meaning, and the ability of some who now attest for us as to their Survival. This is what saved many Jews from the extermination process assigned to all of them, a fortuitous intervention of ability or profession which gave them a few more hours, days, weeks, and even months to procure life for themselves. With such an advantage gained, the opportunity to save another Jew was gained. Preference undoubtedly sought the life of those closest to them, as those given the opportunity to gain from a choice which did not belong to them.
“..Never Again will Jews once again meekly submit.” Meir Kahane.
I am unable to see, in certain aspects of others’ delivery, which in my search to add positively, some appear to label many of these Jews as other than victims. Of all that Hitler planned for the Jewish People, and given they had no choice but to act as directed, the life that was taken away from them, cannot thus accuse them further. I recognise in this call from a Rebbe, a dedication which is not an acceptable one for me, and which seeks further to add to an accusation of Jewish inaction during The Holocaust. For You. For me. For Jews everywhere, and for a World betrayed by forces seeking to benefit from the deaths of others, this line is indefensible. I defend the principles of my own understanding and prove there is this relentless need in my search to gain with truth and honesty, its very integrity.
“..Jews had been harbouring thoughts of revolt and escape for a long time. After long meetings of those privy to ..conspiracy ..it was decided that an uprising would be staged in mid-October ..when some ..SS ..would be on furlough.” Hersz Cukierman.
I am under constant constraint, but I will not contain my words, nor detain their meaning so as to placate the sensibility of so few. For those, who do not see that I do not enter this arena lightly, I have gained recompense from 6,000,000 very good reasons to counter every effort to either diminish their memory in my work or even prevent its going forward. If ever there was a term devised, which should have been applied, specifically for the Jewish People, and after The Holocaust, it is this term of Never Again. Unfortunately, and I have been involved in the search for the Jewish loss for so long, I have begun to recognise more clearly, a World’s indifference to the Jewish People. This intolerable position extends to any and all terms of reference which sees the Jews of The Holocaust in any positive and defining light. The term then, as it is spelled out for me, is not simply a future call to resist, and it is not even to characterise all that Jewish resistance means, but to recognise in the Jewish Catastrophe, a lesson which all of Humanity should adopt.
“..A man doesn’t realize how much he can stand until he is put to ..test. You can stand far more than you think you can. You are much stronger than you think you are. If you can laugh at yourself ..you are going to be fine. If you allow others to laugh with you ..you will be great.” Martin Niemoller
While the term itself might appear as benign, it steps out from an immense Jewish despair, and it must stand for a protection the World Never afforded these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. It is to be a stand-alone history, which has been reinstated from the very Jewish struggle which took at Masada, and it clearly recognises a Jewish struggle that is physically resisting. This place of Masada is within a Jewish History of folklore proportions, and it constantly reminds all Jews of what forms of resistance must exist. But, and this does not decry any moral, spiritual nor ethical resistances which have delivered Jewry through epidemics of Pogrom’s and great hates. And what Yehuda Bauer succinctly points to, we should never stand aside for those who wish to perpetrate heinous crimes, to do so without us intervening or at least openly condemning such atrocity as becomes witnessed.
“..Thou shalt not be a victim ..thou shalt not be a perpetrator ..but ..above all ..thou shalt not be a bystander.” Yehuda Bauer.
Outside of any mutual reaction to the force that has been ranged against the Jews throughout History, it is our inaction that has been evidenced in not saving Jews from further annihilation. We are to become well aware that the abandonment of the Jews was orchestrated in full view of a World not blinded by such truths. History clearly affords us the perspective necessary to explore our past, correct the wrongs done, and usually in our name, in order to prevent that wrongful past spilling over and through today, marking tomorrow with acrimony and threat. When Yitzhak Lamdan struck his epic poem on the struggle at Masada, he came toward the enveloping fire of Jewish destruction, and in further recollection points a Jewish way out of what should not be a forced upon Jewish catastrophe.
“..Who are you that come ..stepping heavy in silence. ..remnant. Alone I remained on ..day of great slaughter. Alone ..of Father and Mother ..Sisters and Brothers. Saved in an empty cask hid in a courtyard corner. Huddled ..a Child in ..womb of an anxious Mother. I survived. Days upon days in fate’s embrace I cried and begged for mercy. Thy deed it is ..O God ..that I remain. Then answer Why. If to bear ..shame of man and ..world. To blazon it forever. Release me. ..world unashamed will flaunt this shame As honour and spotless virtue. And if to find atonement I survive Then Answer ..Where. So importuning a silent voice replied ..In Masada. And I obeyed that voice and so I came. Silent my steps will raise me to ..wall ..Silent as all ..steps filled with ..dread Of what will come. Tall ..tall is ..wall of Masada. Deep ..deep is ..pit at its feet. And if ..silent voice deceived me ..From ..high wall to ..deep pit I will fling me. And let there be no sign remaining And let no remnant survive.” Yitzhak Lamdan.
Masada too seemingly answered the essential need for much of the Jewish persistence that was to then emerge from The Holocaust, as if it was to be a Jewish presence as more than merely a remnant. The Jewish People knew the desolation of their being, and even within The Promised Land, they were subject to the mores of embattled existence which could be so readily removed from them. Never Again is now sourced to replace the many terms used to ensure The Holocaust is a part of a history, that is not to be repeated. In that, we must deal with all that has emerged from The Holocaust Slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe and know the wrongs it inveigles. I had read consistently from what those like Lucy Dawidowicz has clearly stated, and as an historian, it becomes essential to leave outside the scientific effort of our deliberation, all that can be construed as bias. It is from my own position as an Irish Writer that it is hoped, eventually, my position will give rise to the acceptance of the facts presented are as integrity must intend, both correct and truthful.
“..Some people think that ..historian’s personal commitments to his people ..his country ..his religion ..his language undermine his professional objectivity. Not so. ..as long as historians respect ..integrity of their sources and adhere strictly to ..principles of sound scholarship. Personal commitments do not distort ..but instead they enrich ..historical writing.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.
We know too that for the Jewish Survivor who emerged from Buchenwald, the very term Never Again raised its vehemence in an invective against their captors. These words also stand as considered memorials to the fallen of Treblinka, to the 1,000,000’s of Jews of the entire Death Camp and Ghetto system, and as a response to Hitler’s overall intention in The Final Solution for the Jews. An intention is clearly driven by what die Endlosung der Judenfrage proposed, and that no living Jew should escape the dragnet of Hitler’s hatred for them, and as it spread further and further into his own Weltanschauung, more and even more Jews were dragged into the obliterating terms it manifested. We make the case clear too for recalling in all of this, and Elie Wiesel places it most succinctly, that while not all victims were Jews, All Jews Were Victims.
“..Not only have you forgotten ..horrors of that day ..you also seem to have forgotten ..horrors of many years.” Shoshana Lavan.
That very fact of The Final Solution has added to further horrors the Jews have borne ever since then, and as it was a proposal to resolve The Jewish Question, do we not see in this, its continuance. Shoshana Lavan has opened her letter to the World, which has seemingly chosen to reflect more clinically upon those others dying as a consequence of the lack of value too many place upon Jewish existence. We now attempt to take from that position of Never to allow this to happen Again, and this is not just for the Jews any longer, as we are all at risk of becoming victims, targets from what the lessons within history has failed to educate. While it is true that all people will see varying levels of resistance that meets with their own perception of what that means. In the case of the Jews, eviscerated within The Holocaust, targeted in 2,000 years of bitter hatred, many others are keen to lay fault at Jewish feet for what was clearly done to them.
“..German troops marched into Austria. I was 8 years old. As I reached ..vicinity of Helden-Platz I couldn’t go any further ..there were so many people on ..Ring Road and on ..side streets. And I stood there and heard ..yells ..roaring ..this cry ..Heil ..Heil ..Heil ..I knew ..I didn’t belong there,” Lucia Heilman.
I engage here with what Lucia Heilman clearly identified with, and it is a constant theme we meet to this day, and even for Jews living within Israel, as if Jews still don’t belong. If we then move on to what Abba Kovner ascertained, as to being the best response to what he recognised was emanating from Ponary, we have a seeming conflict among even Jews as to how best to respond to the constant threat. But let us not suggest that there was merely passivity in the Jewish acceptance of all of the Hitlerite demands. We know full well up to the doors of the Gas Chambers, and in this we must recognise Chelmno merely presented the Jews with removal vans, to evacuate them, we know all too clearly what this meant for those Jews destroyed here. Evacuation in simple terms, and here under War conditions, would never preclude any innocent People from making use of a civilised nation urging them toward safety.
“..There was a certain irony to my trip to Vilna. I went there with ..romantic belief that it might become ..World center for a self-sustaining Yiddish culture.” Lucy S. Dawidowicz.
History has informed us very well, and that the duping of the Jewish People was cleverly accomplished by an accepting Jewish People who believed in the goodness within humanity. Of this very betrayal of mankind itself, the Jewish People cannot ever be blamed for seeing in human beings, persons not dissimilar from them who should have acted in accord with all the moral probity, ethics could muster and deliver. The example we must take then, from what Abba Kovner cannot be perpetually stuck with, and as the only concept which open to too many. The very fact that any view of sheep sleep-walking into the slaughter, is a misnomer presented by too many others who wish to continue with their own bias. We know all too well, and given that we afford a flawed effort in arming the Jews with a fatal responsibility for their own destruction, we must know that the choice given to these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, was no choice whatsoever.
“..Jewish youngster ..do not trust those that deceive you. Of 80,000 Jews in ..Jerusalem of Lithuania ..only 20,000 have survived. In front of our very eyes ..they tore our Parents ..our Brother’s ..our Sisters from us. Where are 100’s of men who were abducted for labour by ..Lithuanian kidnappers. Where are ..naked Women and ..Children who were taken away from us on ..terrible night of ..provocation. Where are ..Jews who were taken away on Yom Kippur. Where are our brethren from ..second Ghetto. Whoever was taken out of ..Ghetto gates never returned again. All ..roads of ..Gestapo lead to Ponary. And Ponary is death! Hitler is plotting to annihilate all ..Jews of Europe. It befell ..Jews of Lithuania to be ..first in line. Let us not go like sheep to ..slaughter. It’s true ..we are weak and defenceless ..but ..only response to ..enemy is resistance. Brothers. It is better to die as free fighters than to live at ..mercy of murderers. Resist. To our last breath.” Abba Kovner.
In this, Abba Kovner must be recognised for urging Jews to stand and fight, and not as an accusation of their passivity. We recognise such a demand as we would realise in those days we become witnesses to The Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Here, and the abandonment of these Polish Jews by a Polish nation who did not see in a common enemy any need to support their Jews, shirked its moral responsibility to act. We see the self determination here and with the Bielski Partisans who ran the gauntlet of Nazi swoops and Polish anti-Jewish assaults. For Jewish Resistance to be enabled to accomplish anything against Hitler’s devised plans for them, they also had to deal with the antisemitism continually presented to them throughout Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and anywhere there was sight of a financial gain to be made from the Slaughter of the Jews of Europe.
“..after he fled from ..camp in Darniza ..Father came back to our home 9 Kostelnaya Street ..observed by ..building’s superintendent she immediately informed two policemen. My Father Petr Solomonovich was killed in Babi Yar.” Vassili Mikhailovsky.
We are now perfectly well aware too that Children who managed to Survive, knowing full well the fate of their Parents, who could not cling to life, left so many of these Children isolated upon a troubled sea of disturbed life. Formerly known as Zesar Katz, here Vassili realised the betrayal of his Father and the eventual desperate realisation of what Babi-Yar presented. This ravine, which has inflicted its residence upon the future psyche of the Jews lives amongst the Jewish Survivor navigating a new World without 6,000,000 Jews. We then know only too well of the deep hurt and even anger felt as those like Otto Frank returned to the desolation wreaked upon their Family’s. We know too of the broken bond, an extinguished presence that left so many unanswered questions and too many unresolved concerned. Here it is due, in no small part to what Anne Frank has left to us we become aware of what Parents who Survived to find, their Child, Children did not have indeed lost.
“..Dear Milly ..I hope this letter will reach you ..giving you ..news that I am living. It really is a wonder. ..I have lost everything except my life. Nothing from our possessions has survived. No photo ..no letter from my Children ..nothing ..nothing.” Otto Frank.
The term itself ‘Never Again’ cannot ever be allowed as a refrain of again, and again, and still yet again, and not exclusively aimed at the Jews as it has been for over 2,000 years. The necessity then, to recognise in every detail of The Holocaust must be a lesson we have come to learn, and this cannot remain stagnant in pursuit of educating the future. It must clearly mean, and all and any atrocity must be banished from all of society, is an essential in ameliorating the wrongful effects of its attack upon what civilises us. It must include too, and that no matter what the nature of the infection, it must be made certain that atrocity will never be passed onto another Person. There should be no less an inflexion, that attacks upon any People shall not be imposed upon another People due to their diversity. I am remined too that what Pastor Niemoller came to acknowledge:
“..First they came for ..Socialists ..and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for ..trade unionists ..and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for ..Jews ..and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.” Pastor Martin Niemoller.
All of this feeds into what has become a fact, and that Jews are no longer the only Peoples under threat, although their threat is a consistent and singularly persistent one. Such is that truth, and ever since 1948 we have seen the evidence of such atrocity as has been squarely directed against Jews. This is not solely within Israel as an immediate point of entry, but to Jews throughout the World as a hate filled and concerted effort in continuance of The Greatest Hatred. Throughout my search on The Holocaust I have recognised the eloquence of all of those who best speak about the very atrocity they indeed emerged from and one of those is Primo Levi, an extraordinary literary testifier. When we consider from his effort that outside there are violent rages and no longer is there a guarantee that it is only aimed at Jews.
“..You who live safe In your warm houses ..You who find warm food And friendly faces when you return home. Consider if this is a man Who works in mud ..Who knows no peace ..Who fights for a crust of bread ..Who dies by a yes or no. Consider if this is a woman Without hair ..without name ..Without ..strength to remember ..Empty are her eyes ..cold her womb ..Like a frog in winter. Never forget that this has happened. Remember these words. Engrave them in your hearts ..When at home or in ..street ..When lying down ..when getting up. Repeat them to your Children. Or may your houses be destroyed ..May illness strike you down ..May your offspring turn their faces from you.” Primo Levi.
We can no longer strain the terms of such meaning so as to impose, pain, suffering, hunger and even in subjecting society to the enforced dislodgement of its People. Human Beings from varying communities, can no longer be forced to suffer on the whim of another, and yet, this is constantly happening. There is no better resolve to this than the mutual discourse that any agreement brings to all solutions. What I constantly hope is, the Jews will be left to self-determination, and for Jews to be left to decide how best to live for themselves. But absolutely nowhere in this latter assessment can the atrocity, now being visited upon anyone else, be allowed to decry the need for a recognition of what has been historically aimed at the Jewish People.
“..it’s very uncomfortable to watch a term Never Again ..used to talk about your Family and People’s own heritage and history be taken away overnight.” Lily Herman.
There are those like Joseph Wulf, who sought his own way out of the despair by being one of the first Survivor Jews to write on the Jewish presence within The Holocaust. Wulf has left behind a truth we cannot come to terms with as clearly, justice did not serve 6,000,000 Jews well, and though a burgeoning industry in ignoring that need grows, history will never be allowed to forget what was achieved against these Jews, and why. Emerging now is those many pioneering historians, and they are an ostensibly Jewish group of Survivors who placed their evidence’s before us, and who remain as the artisans of all literary appreciation of the Jewish suffering. These Holocaust Survivors whose tortured words added distinctly to the very Jewish nature of what history was yet to fully appreciate in studying The Holocaust.
“..When my Mother ..Dr. Regine Hildebrandt ..born Treister ..met my Father ..Dr. Rudy Kraus in 1927 she got also acquainted with his best friend Reinhold Duschka. They met at a Viennese youth organization where Rudy and Reinhold went mountain climbing together.” Lucia Heilman.
Both Jewish Women and Jewish Mother’s are under-represented in the narrative to emerge from the midst of what has completely diminished them. As gender-based Jews, who are hugely impacted by the nazi perversion shown toward them, we are to recognise, perhaps inaccurately, that of the 6,000,000 Jews who are The Holocaust, only some 2,000,000 of these are Jewish Females, Girls, Women. It is clear to me that everyone should have a Mother and that they could and should be heaped with praise, and upon them we recognise that when it is the Mom who heaps praise upon their Child, it is instinctive then that the Children are set upon a Road that will make them more whole. The best part of who we could be is honed from the skills we learn, pick up and are gifted. It is along that route, that there are shifting corners, turns which will define us as Human Beings.
“..Mother instinct is something of which I am completely devoid. I explain it like this to myself ..life is a vale of tears and all human beings are miserable creatures ..so I cannot take ..responsibility for bringing yet another unhappy creature into ..World.” Etty Hillesum.
We fall over, we are picked up and we seek refuge and are advised which way is the next best way for us to turn. We either accept the advice we are given, and correct the mistakes we make along the way, and we adjust to the wrongs and correct them as best we can or become corrupted in some way. The World knows very well, that so many Jewish Mother’s paid the ultimate penalty for refusing to relinquish their hold upon their Child, or Children, and this drove them toward the pits and ravines of murderous atrocity, or the assembled before the doors to the gas chambers and held tightly until that last moment when that hold was so finally obliterated. I shall retain mine to me as a Woman who best understood this need to write on matters which concern all of humanity. And to add further to those Mothers of The Holocaust, we should already know, I add to some of their memory here.
“..Mother has said that she sees us more as friends than as daughters. That’s all very nice ..of course ..except that a friend can’t take ..place of a Mother. I need my Mother to set a good example and be a person I can respect ..but in most matters ..she’s an example of what not to do.” Anne Frank.
My research of The Holocaust extends to an individual grief, and it is that which all too many just would not wish to understand but reflects a pain of grief I recognise in her loss. It became personal to me with an image of a 4-year-old Jewish Girl, Tovah Olshak, and it is even more manifestly encompassing of these 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews I have yet to know. Many of those Jews were Jewish Mother’s with little chance to impart all of the advice their Children could use. My Mom knew very well my creative vent needed an outlet, and in words I plunder from 6,000,000 Jews whose stilled voices have been so robbed of those words, today, I choose to add for them and once again continue:
Always to Remember, Never to Forget.
“..Auschwitz is outside of us ..but it is all around us ..in ..air. ..plague has died away ..but ..infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity ..obtuse and cynical indifference to ..suffering of others ..abdication of ..intellect and of moral sense to ..principle of authority ..and above all ..at ..root of everything ..a sweeping tide of cowardice ..a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue ..love of country and faith in an idea.” Primo Levi.
I am made aware that Never Again was used in a Swedish documentary on The Holocaust back in 1961 when The Holocaust remained along the fringes of our understanding. Indeed, learning of the very detail of the overall Catastrophe was not detailed in any specific way, was driven deeper into the subconscious of so many Jewish Survivors, that time was beginning an allowance to forgetfulness When we then hear of its expression from an American President, Barack Obama, whose suggestion that our vigilance would resolve what ailed the World, we listened attentively enough so as to soon forget again. President Barack Obama used the phrase in its universal sense, when speaking and marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2011.
“..We are reminded to remain ever vigilant against ..possibility of genocide and to ensure that Never Again is not just a phrase but a principled cause and we resolve to stand up against prejudice ..stereotyping ..violence ..including ..scourge of antisemitism around ..globe.” Barack Obama.
Here, Barack Obama pointed to the essential need to end both the scourge of antisemitism and to make a decisive move away from the very prejudices which seek to divert us. The positions obtained, so as to divert us from the one true course which any so called god must expect, and which should unify us. We fail so miserably to recognise that within the universality of human equality, there is the essential amongst all ethical and moral beings, there is a belonging within the humanity of all human kind. The recognition of each and every one of us as indivisible from nature must ensure we are all driven by the very nature that makes us equal to all, and superior to none.
“..Never Again becomes more than a slogan ..it’s a prayer ..a promise ..a vow. Never Again ..glorification of base ..ugly ..dark violence,” Elie Wiesel. 2012.
I have obliged myself to make writing on The Holocaust, for 6,000,000 Jews who have given us its meaning, in order that their meaning should not be lost to us. This does Not mean I have no opinions over the state of this World as it continues blithely along its perilous route. Nor does this loosen my condemnation of those who insist upon what Jews are continually forced to endure. But, and I do not confuse the two, nor conflate each with comparison nor ignore the enormity of the permanent Jewish need for Israel. It cannot be ignored today that Israel might have provided 6,000,000 safe havens for Jews back when they were not required to remain alive. None of this, from my own perspective, equates to the massive loss Jews must feel, nor what non-Jews must accept is a crippling assault upon humanity which happened on our watch.
“..in 1948 ..Jews were fighting for their lives for a state that had been promised to them as a safe haven ..after ..persecution and slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews in The Holocaust. One man led his country to attempt a genocide of a people where his dream and ..dream of his followers was to open a museum to teach future generations about a race they’d succeeded in obliterating ..thus saving ..rest of ..World from suffering ..Jewish nation any longer.” Roshana Lavan.
My thoughts are barely fixed, as they do not allow for what the Jewish People must consider to be a fierce struggle for the Surviving Jew. To have been enabled to escape what was the reality that existed for the Jews of Europe, all efforts in retaining a Jewish Homeland for the Jewish People must be maintained. The 6,000,000 Jews, who are The Holocaust, reside within the hearts of all of those who choose every reason to remember them. While I can state categorically, that between 50 and 70 million People died during Worl War II, it seems we are not allowed to emphasize the possibility that far more than 6,000,000 is to be the total of Slaughtered Jews of The Final Solution. A Jewish Question, which persists while Never Again continues to outrage all of humanity, is the delivery with such force of inhumanity that we are warned may rage once more, we accept it with no guarantee, that only Jews will be impacted.
“..They are never allowed to feel at home in ..communities that demand their services.” John Steinbeck.
The whole truth of The Holocaust will never be known, nor will the strength of resistance that played a hand in both saving Jews from the Catastrophe and ensuring the peaceful transition for Parents taking their Child, or Children, toward oblivion. For so many Children, who refused to abandon their Parents we recognise in what John Steinbeck realised, the Jewish People lived together amongst neighbours who did not themselves feel at home with the Jewish presence. It is reprehensible, and I have been a witness to such in a Film called Shoah, where former neighbours are teetering on the brink as they eyed with suspicion, Jews looking at what had always been theirs. Claude Lanzmann performed a devastating blow to the many assertions made by all too many, who did not see their own indifference as participatory in all that Hitler sought.
“..death ..I feel ..is very near. I could have 23 next July ..I gambled on what mattered most ..dice were cast. I lost.” Hannah ‘Senesh’ Szenes.
Let us now not make little of the heroics involved in putting Family first when behind these Jews, nothing awaited them in returning. We know the many, like Hannah Szenes, who had escaped the conflagration, only to return to the crucible of such a hatred that finally consumed her. Recognised for the Hero she truly is, it is typical of states like Hungary that she is not even considered memorable in the annals of their own history. So Hannah gambled on what mattered most and in the end, we are the losers in what should be a beacon for all our humanitarian efforts. Of course, the perpetrators who committed this atrocity have never all admitted to it, immense human beings like Hannah require of us, a better memory of what civilising society endeavours to exemplify. These 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews are no longer available to admit to what happened to them, and neither is Hannah who fought to make a difference to what was to consume more than 560,000 of her own Hungarian Jews.
“..I’ve become a Zionist. ..word stands for a ..number of things. To me it means ..I now consciously and strongly feel I am a Jew and am proud of it. My primary aim is to go ..to work for it.” Hannah ‘Senesh’ Szenes.
The very fact of this is that we have all lost in a humanity that Hannah Szenes presents to us and toward what The Holocaust presents to us in meaning. I can no more know those 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews than Yad-Vashem, who have incorporated Hannah into their study. What this State Museum is attempting and managing to gather to get all the names they can manage, of all of those Jews wholly consumed by such brutality. I do know that at least, Yad-Vashem has identified some 4,900,000 of those Jews torn from us and Hannah Szenes is amongst those we are aware of. Specifically, and what I can do, I hope, is to place the memory of All 6,000,000 of these Jewish People, into the Hearts, Souls and Minds of all People. This simple, in order that memory reminds the World how this can happen, if we just simply sit back and watch, I continue in my own way to add more to what is missing.
“..Even if they catch me ..at least it will be known to ..Jews that somebody tried to get to them. At least they’ll know that they aren’t completely abandoned.” Hannah ‘Senesh’ Szenes.
Truly, memory alone will not ensure a future reason for the certainty of appreciating how wrong the Catastrophe of The Holocaust is. It is essential too to know why it matters to all, regardless of our own heritage or belief, and especially against those haters who are distorting all efforts at memory. The sheer disparity between Jews who were chosen for destruction and Jews who were not allowed any peaceful remedy for relief, cannot confuse us with what The Holocaust represents. The Slaughter of those 6,000,000 Jews is my reason to assert that the full and foremost target of Hitler’s racial plan was this slaughter of the Jews of Europe. My Books are now my continuous lifeline back to the terms of The Holocaust that remained out of my view as a researcher. They now present me with what has become the driving force in recollection, so as to deliver and retrieve such extortionate memory from its grasp and learn from it.
“..mass murderers walk around free ..live in their little houses ..and grow flowers.” Joseph Wulf.
This monumental search, into what was inflicted upon the Jewish People, literally extols a grievous need that best describes the Jewish Catastrophe being learned from. In the need to ensure Never Again must mean what it says, we must look to the terrifying ordeal presented to Jews on a daily basis as they struggled to survive against the will of an ignorant corporal from Austria. In that effort, I have explored a series of Diaries, for in their words, diarists have delivered to us the very reason we need to deliver further the learning from the terrible trade in hatred exhibited against all Jews. I have delved deep too into Memoirs that are confronting what that Jewish experience was, and how they were simply chosen for extinction without recourse to any choice whatsoever. In the midst of these Books I have and am reading, I cannot be more better placed in any such search for the Jewish loss and the truth as to why we allowed the Jews to become lost. In that, we cannot be reassured of any lessons we have learned in order for a more compassionate and caring society ensuring we do onto others as we would have them do onto us.
“..To me ..it seems as if Hitler has won. He’s changed us Jews from being compassionate and caring and do unto others as you would have them do unto you into this vicious ..genocidal nationalist nation ..pursuing and killing Women and Children.” Miriam Margolyes.
