Try to understand: A reflection on Holocaust Remembrance Week

If you remember the first time you heard the word “Holocaust” and it was with your dad in the car on the way home from Hebrew school and you were ten years old, then maybe you would understand.

If you watched Nazi propaganda in your Hebrew school class in high school and you thought to yourself, “I see why people fell for this, these stirring shots of Nuremberg, of Hitler waving from an open car, of swastika flags billowing on a spring breeze,” and then your mind took you to a dark, snowy pit and the sound of gunfire, then maybe you would understand.

If you remember Squirrel Hill because, if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere, if you remember the armed guards outside your synagogue that weekend, then maybe you would understand.

If you see things online that blame your people for anything and everything, if you watched in horror as a rabbi was held hostage, literally last weekend, if you saw as the world turned aside at the suffering again, and again, again. If you are afraid, then maybe, just maybe, you would understand.



 

roxyforthewin

MA

YWP Alumni

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