We spell the Holocaust with a capital “H” because it represents the most devastating example of genocide in history. It was not “a” holocaust, but “THE” Holocaust, because millions of innocent people were exterminated for their belief in God. By order of the German government, millions of Jews were systematically annihilated. That is in addition to the murder of millions of additional “undesirables” (Gypsies, homosexuals, political prisoners, Russian prisoners, criminals, etc.) The German government used these innocent people as scapegoats to distract the citizens of Europe from military conquest that was already running.
Consider only the plight of European Jewry during the period called “Shoah” (the Holocaust), from 1933 to the end of World War II in 1945). The vast majority of these Jews were not given a quick death. They were not hanged or shot. They didn’t get an injection to hasten their way to a painless death. They were exterminated, like annoying insects. They were gassed to death, because that was the most efficient way to get rid of six million men, women, and children, who happened to be Jews.
Because of the way they praised God; six million innocent people were killed. Women, the elderly, the sick, the frail, and children were often the first to enter the gas chambers. Strong men and women were barely kept alive by their value as forced labor. Those who could work were employed as slaves for the benefit of the German military and industrialists. Some of those German companies exist today, albeit under different names. Some still have the same name. When there was no more work, they too were killed.
My mother experienced brutal anti-Semitism as a child in Russia. I heard many stories about the brutal Cossacks who persecuted the Jews in the cities and towns of Ukraine. My mother and her sisters barely survived and then prospered in America. However, most of her remaining family perished in the Holocaust. So the genocide is close to my heart. I hold it for eternity, like a cumbersome stone attached to my soul. It is a burden of remarkable proportions. My ancestors cry out for justice. They want you to know what happened to them and their children. But I can’t tell this story without revealing the Holocaust in every possible way. It is a terrible and beautiful story, full of heroes and villains.
Why would anyone want to think about the Holocaust today, particularly when they could listen to their iPod or unplug from the moving world with movies, laptops, and television? However, the deaths of six million innocent people MUST be counted. If not, there would be nothing to prevent more genocides, and more after that! Everyone must listen to this tragedy. Otherwise, our progeny might embrace the worst of human nature.
This does not diminish the importance of other Holocausts. Those innocent people who were killed in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur were equally innocent. When will society stop fearing those who are different? When will we learn to value the differences between us, instead of fearing them? When will we stop ostracizing people because of their religion, race, or ethnic heritage? When will governments and people stop using minorities as scapegoats? After all, this is the 21st century! We are better than that. We must be better than that.
I appreciate books that offer a frank and emotional examination of morality. Human beings are not good or bad, but good and bad. We surround ourselves with romance and comedy, playing on the healthier parts of our emotional identity. However, disgust, despair and darkness exist within human nature. We learn nothing about ourselves if we don’t examine the dark side of our psyche.
I explored how humans behaved during the most brutal and horrendous genocide in history. For three years, I researched the Holocaust on a daily basis. If any benefit can come from the Shoah, it is that we can examine and learn from the fullest measure of human depravity. We can measure their immorality, degeneracy and wickedness. However, humans are complex beings. There is much more to our nature than the ever-present battlefield of virtue versus malevolence. We are neither one nor the other, but a combination of both. We are beautiful and ugly, calming and frightening, brutal and affectionate, kind and wicked; we love and despise.
Deep in the fear and panic of the Holocaust were immensely critical decisions about ethical behavior and our concept of morality. Unlike animals, humans are governed by principles, ethical beliefs, and the power of truthfulness. We are not clouded by delusions of integrity, but governed by them. The victims and survivors of the Holocaust provide us with the human response to terror. Innocent people, like you and me, were reduced to unpleasant objects, used as slaves and then annihilated. The German government used propaganda to teach all of Europe that the Jews were “vermin.” A whole generation of Germans was taught that the Jews were dangerous and should be exterminated. Unfortunately, many Europeans were too eager to go along with this propaganda. They gleefully participated in rounding up Jewish families (Einsatzgruppen) and handing them over to the SS, who placed them in concentration camps. Hardly any of the Jews survived, including women and children.
At the same time, despite their enslavement in ghettos and concentration camps, the Jews of Europe experienced the alluring beauty of young, passionate love and the driving power of religious devotion. After all, they were still human beings. Being imprisoned in a concentration camp did not prevent the Jewish victims from experiencing the world of normal emotions. Instead, he added a nightmarish dose of terror, horror and fear. Our lives are complex, even within the garish trap of the Holocaust. Not all imprisoned Jews were innocent victims. Not all Germans were rabid anti-Semites, bent on the destruction of the Jewish “race.” Life was and is much more complex.
In reality, the world is rarely seen in black and white, or even shades of gray, especially during the Holocaust. In the midst of a terrible, indescribable anguish, there was beauty. Within the beauty, there was despair. And, while many Jews in the abyss of the Holocaust worshiped God, some condemned God. While it may be easy to affirm that God works in mysterious ways, how can one approach such a conviction when all the veneer of all that is good in life has been stripped away? How to continue to love a God who allows the murder of every innocent loved one, a deity who allows innocent people and children to be starved, beaten, tortured, denigrated, disfigured and emotionally destroyed? Could the Shoah have been the last test of faith?
The survivors of the Holocaust lost everything, but perhaps they also gained something in some way. Certainly, an honest examination of the Holocaust must reveal torturous brutality and death. Most Holocaust survivors lost everyone they loved. The facade of life’s beauty was stripped away, revealing an incomprehensible abyss of disgust. Yet here, in the depths of the horror, the Jews of the Holocaust hit a wall and kept running. Despite the onslaught of evil, facing certain death, these Jews created an imaginary world for their children. Deep in the hideous concentration camps of Nazi Germany, the Jews of Europe continued to practice their religion, teach their children, and love one another. Here, among the gas chambers and crematoria, hope for the survival of the human spirit can be felt. Those rare individuals who maintained their Jewish identity in the Holocaust rise like a fabulous phoenix from the ashes of annihilation.
Those poor souls caught up in the terror of the Holocaust faced the most evil forces. Deception, brutality, cruelty, disease, hunger and the death of loved ones were the daily companions of the victims of the Shoah. Yet, in the midst of utter despair, there was life, love, passion, desire, religious fervor, and emotion known only to children. Even in such hopeless desolation, there was love for God, infatuation, romance, passion, and longing for all the things humans yearn for. The Jews manufactured their ethnicity to the rhythm of the slow and steady march to the gas chambers. They refused to allow the fabric of Jewish society to be torn apart by relocation and the threat of disappearance. They created schools, orchestras, sporting events, synagogues and prayer, weddings and funerals, dances and theater, study groups and debates; Jews were sent to all hells; they took their Jewish lifestyle and values with them. Instead of giving in to the Nazis, Jews trapped in ghettos and concentration camps bravely maintained their culture. Religious festivals were observed as if it were another year. Even when it was forbidden to observe the rituals of Judaism, the victims of the Holocaust found a way to pray and fulfill the duties of a Jew. Some of the most fiery examples of constructive human nature can be found in these terrifying moments of the Holocaust.
Hidden from the SS, Jews in the ghettos and concentration camps observed all the required covenants and rituals, including prayer services on Saturday and during major holidays, marriage ceremonies, burials, and circumcisions. Along the sinister, terrifying and unforgiving road to the gas chambers of Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews lived, loved, learned and died, behaving as if their lives went on forever. In their darkest moments, Shoah Jews manufactured a “normal” life for their offspring. Despite their impending mortality, they created an ordinary world inside to protect their children from the raging genocide outside. Such was the nature of their love, faith and devotion. In fact, this adoration transcended parental affection. In the gas chambers and crematoria of Nazi-controlled Europe, the Jews of the Holocaust emptied their faith and love, while continuing to worship the God of their ancestors.
The human spirit fights for autonomy and freedom. However, to appreciate human nature, one must descend to the depths of depravity and terror. We cannot understand humanity without understanding its wicked flaws. Deep in the darkest corners of brutal genocide, we discover a faint flicker of light that represents love, passion, desire, hope, adoration, and reverence. Here is the essence of humanity: a flash of light that represents morality, faith, love and righteousness, in the midst of the dark vortex of malevolence. But it is not enough that we understand the Holocaust. Our progeny must also understand it. Otherwise it could happen again.
That is why we must always tell the stories of the Holocaust. Such stories represent the worst of human vilification and the insurmountable limits of our compassion. The stories of the Holocaust teach us to recognize the worst examples of humanity, but also the benefits of a viable morality. The terror of genocide is not necessarily an inevitable human outcome. We must learn from the mistakes of our past, instead of repeating them. As long as we teach our children about the Holocaust, there is hope that it will never happen again.
