I am the child of a Holocaust survivor.
My father’s entire family was sent to Auschwitz aboard a freight train on January 29, 1943. They arrived at Auschwitz two days after their deportation from their home in Berlin, Germany.
My grandfather was a manufacturer of women’s clothing who had served in the Kaiser’s army during World War I; my grandmother was a pianist, and by my father’s account, a gentle soul; my aunt was 22 years old. My father, then 20, was an enormously talented musician. He managed to survive for two years in Auschwitz by playing in the camp orchestra.
His parents and sister were killed there on January 31, 1943—the day they arrived.
They died in the gas chambers, were burned up in the ovens, and released as smoke and ash over Poland.
Only my father survived. His Auschwitz souvenir was the indelible blue tattoo on his arm: 105236.
Yom HaShoah (April 17, this year) is the day in the Jewish calendar designated for the remembrance of the Holocaust and of all those who perished. Included in that group were not just six million Jews: There were Gypsies; there were writers, artists and musicians; there were political dissidents; there were intellectuals; there were homosexuals; there were scientists; there were Christian clergy; there were “mental defectives” and “undesirables.”
In all, 11 million people died—six million of them were Jewish, and of that six million, a million and a half were children.
There is a world-wide history of Jewish persecution that dates back millennia. Jews were enslaved in Egypt by the pharaohs. Tens of thousands died during the Holy Crusades and in the Spanish Inquisition when they refused to convert to Christianity. Subsequently, Jews had a centuries-long experience of poverty, violent pogroms, and forced isolation within the walled ghettos of Europe.
Over the course of human history, Jews have been savaged on the basis of ridiculous falsehoods: that we caused the plague (we didn’t); that we use the blood of Christian babies as an ingredient in Passover matzoh (we don’t); that we have horns and tails (not the last time I checked); that we control the banks (no, we don’t); that we control world politics (no, but sometimes I wish I did); that we’re selfish penny-pinchers (profoundly untrue—Jews are some of those most generous and philanthropic people on Earth); and, recently, that we control the climate (honestly, there really is no such thing as a Jewish space laser).
Is every Jew a paragon of virtue? Of course not. Is every Christian a saint? No. Is every Hindu, or Muslim, or Buddhist without flaw? Unlikely. There is no religious, ethnic, or racial group on earth that has cornered the market on virtue, just as there is no religious, ethnic, or racial group that is inherently evil. Jews are just people who might subscribe to religious beliefs and customs that are not identical to yours, but who are people nonetheless—with all of the flaws and virtues that people are likely to have.
My mother has always insisted that another Holocaust could easily happen in America. My father disagreed, having lived through it himself. He believed that America was the land of freedom, acceptance, and opportunity. I used to roll my eyes when my mother launched into her perennial forecasts of impending doom.
I don’t roll my eyes anymore.
When I see tiki torch-brandishing white supremacists marching down the streets of Charlottesville chanting, “The Jews will not replace us!”, or the rioters wearing Camp Auschwitz tee shirts among the January 6 insurrectionists; when I hear the incessant antisemitic tropes about George Soros who, by the way, is also a Holocaust survivor; or when I watch in horror as lunatics shoot up synagogues and paint swastikas on the walls of homes and businesses and schools, I find myself thinking, at last, that my mother is right.
It has happened everywhere else, and it can happen here, too—and not just to the Jewish community. When we demean, revile, and dehumanize any group of people—whether they are refugees fleeing poverty and violence, or LGBTQ+ people, or Muslims, or Asians, or people of color—we set the table for future acts of hideous brutality.
Spanish philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” We have all had ample opportunity to consider the truth of this aphorism, as we witness our human family make the same catastrophic mistakes over and over and over again. And so it is that I remember a past that cannot be changed, hoping in some small way to safeguard the future:
May their memory be a blessing, and may they rest in peace.
