Strong message from Holocaust survivor: Remember the past

[azmouse]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40837933

“We — the survivors — won the war, and not because the Nazi Germany was disarmed,” Handler said. “We survived. We got married, had children and grandchildren. And we never talked to them about hate or vengeance. We didn’t put a gun in our children’s hand to send them out to kill and be killed. We put books in their hands, and they went and filled universities in this country and all over the world.”

Born Ilona Ackerman in the former Czechoslovakia, Handler withstood the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkenau and was part of a death march before she was one of 7,000 prisoners freed by the Soviet army in January 1945.

**snip**

Handler and other Holocaust survivors will be gone soon, she said, so it is critical for new generations to take up the awareness torch. She believes that the Chandler Holocaust Museum — a 4.6-acre project slated to be built next to the East Valley Jewish Community Center at Alma School and Ray roads — will be a vital local resource.

“You cannot look to and live in the future if you never turn back to see the horros of the past,” Handler said. “In some respects, killing has become entertainment. We are losing respect for human life.”

[Adso's Letter]

“In some respects, killing has become entertainment. We are losing respect for human life.”

Man, is this ever the truth. The whole focus on "if it bleeds, it leads," the undercurrent of violence (subtle, and not so subtle) associated with much of what passes for media-based political discussion, whole websites dedicated to war-porn, etc., etc. and on, and on.

I think one of the lessons that looms largest in my thinking these days regarding the whole Nazi regime is the willingness of many of the citizens of occupied Europe to assist in the destruction of so many lives; not only the Holocaust of the Jewish people, but many others deemed "undesireable" according to ethnic, sexual, religious, or political identifications. Stalin had his own way, as did the Japanese. And, iirc, both America and Britain could have done much more to open a haven of safety for the Jewish people while such a thing was still possible.

Thankyou for this post, azmouse.