Holocaust Memorial Day

Holocaust Memorial Day, reprinted with the kind permission of:

Precisely at 10:00 am this morning, sirens blared throughout the entire country of Israel and everyone stopped. Cars on highways and city streets immediately halted, as you see on the right in Jerusalem, drivers stepped out beside their vehicles, lowered their heads and there was absolute silence for two minutes while a nation mourned the loss of six million of its people at the hands of the Nazis in World War II.

During the reading of the names at the Knesset today of those who perished, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres read out the names of family members who were killed in the Holocaust, participating in a Knesset ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. President Peres – who recited the names of his grandparents – took a moment to speak of his memory of them: “When we said goodbye in the train station, before I left to come to Israel, they gave me just two words – ‘be Jewish.’”

Cabinet ministers, MKs and survivors of the World War II Nazi genocide also took part in the state ceremony.

Holocaust Memorial Day is an intensely personal day for Israelis as a very large majority of our citizens lost relatives in the camps of eastern Europe. For those who didn’t lose personal family members, the magnitude of the atrocities against our own people staggers the mind and the alarming rise of anti-Semitism across the world at this time gives this day an additional measure of pain and a quiet but very real anxiety.

Holocaust Memorial Day, reprinted with the kind permission of:

March of the Living in Auschwitz

March of the Living in Auschwitz, reprinted with the kind permission of:

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi visited the Warsaw Ghetto and a Jewish cemetery in Poland ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, ahead of leading thousands of Jews from around the world today in the annual March of the Living at the Auschwitz concentration camp. It is the first time that an IDF Chief will lead the march.

Ashkenazi visited the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, Poland to pay his respects to the Jews who died in the Warsaw Ghetto. Ashkenazi stood silent for a few moments and then said: “The answer to what we see here is us, the State of Israel, the IDF and victory.”

The Chief met with Jews who continue to live in Poland and visited the Nozyk synagogue. He also visited a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, located at the site of the home used as a command center by Mordechai Anielewicz, the local commander of the Jewish uprising against the Nazis.

“In this place Mordechai Anielewicz didn’t just hide from the Nazis,” Ashkenazi noted, “he also fought. It is fitting that the soldiers of the IDF soldiers learn the story of this uprising. That is why we came to admire and salute the heroes who – despite the realities and balance of power, and the fact that they were untrained civilians – got up and took action and fought. Today we call these principles and moral norms.”

“They knew they had no chance of winning, but they fought nevertheless. That is bravery. The importance of victory is a norm for the IDF and a central part of it, alongside remembrance and study of the Holocaust.”

Before today’s March of the Living, each participant was given the following pledge to recite as well as the words to Hatikva (Israel’s national anthemn) and the mourner’s Kadish (prayer for mourners). The pledge reads as follows:

“We pledge to keep alive and honor the legacy of the multitudes of our people who perished in the Holocaust.

We pledge to fight anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, Holocaust denial and all other forms of hatred directed towards the Jewish people and Israel.

We pledge to fight every form of discrimination manifested against any religion, nationality or ethnic group.

We pledge to actively participate in the strengthening of Jewish life in the Diaspora and Israel.

We pledge to increase our knowledge of our Jewish heritage and to pass on a love of Jewish life and learning to the next generation.

We pledge to give tzedaka, to assist in helping the Jewish needy, wherever they may live in the world.

We pledge to involve ourselves in tikkun olam, to build a better world for all members of the human family.

After the Shoah the promise of ‘Never Again’ was proclaimed. We pledge to create a world where ‘Never Again’ will become a reality for the Jewish people and, indeed, for all people.

This is our solemn pledge to the Jewish people, to those who came before us, to those of our generation, and to those who will follow in future generations.”

March of the Living in Auschwitz, reprinted with the kind permission of:

A Survivor Among Them

A Survivor Among Them, reprinted with the kind permission of:

Noah Kleiger, an Auschwitz survivor who has re-visited Auschwitz several times, writes:

For many years now, every time I arrive at Auschwitz, I get the same feeling. It appears to me that it wasn’t me who was here during this incredibly dark period, but rather, someone else whose story I heard at some point in life.

For many years now I’ve been thinking about those Germans who worked at Auschwitz and at other extermination camps. How could it be that every evening the officers returned to their villas outside the camp, kissed their wife and kids, and sat down for dinner with their family? How did they stroke their cat and play with their dog – as I saw with my own eyes many times when I passed by them on my way to doing more hard labor. In the morning, these officers went back to their job: The extermination of thousands of Jews.

How can that be?

Click below to read this survivor’s story.

I Will Never Understand

A Survivor Among Them, reprinted with the kind permission of:

Thou Shalt Not Forget

This article Thou Shalt Not Forget, reprinted with the kind permission of The Lekarev Report.

Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel begins at 7:30 this evening with a ceremony at Yad Vashem to be attended by government leaders, Holocaust survivors and hundreds of Israelis. President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will deliver speeches during the ceremony, and Holocaust survivors will light up six torches, in memory of the six millions murdered in the Shoah.

A ceremony attended by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will be held at 8:00 pm at the Massuah Amphitheater in Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak. Veteran Israelis who arrived to Israel on the ship Exodus will light up the Torch of Revival.

At 10:00 am Thursday a siren will be heard throughout the entire country and Israelis will stand in absolute silence and attention for two minutes. Immediately following the siren, wreaths will be laid at the foot of the memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

The annual ceremony ‘Unto every person a name,’ during which the names of Holocaust victims are read aloud, will begin at 10:30 at Yad Vashem and at the Knesset.

Zanne Farbstein was 16 years old when she was deported with her two younger sisters to Auschwitz. While working as a slave laborer, Zanne found her father’s prayer shawl while sorting through the clothing of the prisoners who had been murdered in the camp. Zanne survived Auschwitz , and moved to Israel with her few surviving family members, where she began a new life. Click below to hear Zanne tell you in her own words about her experience:

A Survivor Remembers

In Jewish homes around the world tonight, a 24 hour memorial candle will be lit in memory of the six million who perished at the hands of the Nazis. You are most welcome to join us.

May they never be forgotten and may their memory be forever blessed.

This article Thou Shalt Not Forget, reprinted with the kind permission of The Lekarev Report.

Islam: One German’s Point of View

Read this Post at Reb Elya Katz’s blog “Schmoozing with Elya Katz“.

Thought worthwile sharing and do consider you should pass it on!

I received this in my email box today. I thought posting it on my blog would be more effective than merely sending it on to my entire address book, thought that is certainly beneficial as well. Feel free to swipe it. It’s not mine, and was obviously meant for that purpose.

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.

‘Very few people were true Nazis’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything.I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’

We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.

Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.

It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the ‘peaceful majority,’ the ’silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists (Karl Marx and associates) were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving?’

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up because, like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because their peaceful majorities did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on. Let us hope that thousands, world wide, read this -think about it – and send it on.

Say it brother, and say it loud.