International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017

“It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.” __Elie Weisel. • January 27 is the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp and it is the day designated by the United Nations General Assembly as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the victims of the Nazi era and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides. You can join the conversation and share your reflections about International Holocaust Remembrance Day on social media using #HolocaustRemembrance. There are remembrance ceremonies and events worldwide to commemmorate the day. • In Washington DC, on January 27 at 11 a.m., the Museum will host a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a program featuring remarks from the Honorable Björn Lyrvall, Ambassador of Sweden to the United States, and a Holocaust survivor, musical selections from the US Army Band, and a candle-lighting ceremony and victims’ names reading. You can join the program live at ushmm.org/watch. • At the United Nations in New York City, until March 5, the UN is hosting "State of Deception : The Power of Nazi Propaganda," described as a powerful exhibition that examines how the Nazis used propaganda to win broad voter support, implement radical programs, and justify war and mass murder. It emphasizes why the issue of propaganda matters and challenges citizens to actively question, analyze, and seek the truth. • Also, at the UN on January 27 at 11 a.m. EST, there will be a United Nations Holocaust Memorial Ceremony that you can watch live on the UN website. • The National World War II Museum in New Orleans is hosting "State of Deception : The Power of Nazi Propaganda," an exhibition that continues through June 18. • The Paris Hotel de Ville, or city hall, will also host "State of Deception : The Power of Nazi Propaganda" (L’État Trompeur : Le Pouvoir de la Propagande Nazi). You can visit the exhibition in the Paris Rendez-Vous space from January 26 through February 27. • • • The website Virtual Jerusalem has posted quotations from Holocaust victims and survivors. Here are some of the quotations. • Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Holocaust Survivor : "I remember the looks of horror on the faces of the American soldiers when they came in and stared around them. I was afraid when I saw them. I crept behind a pile of dead bodies and hid there, watching them warily. Rabbi Herschel Schachter was the Jewish chaplain of the division. I saw him get out of a jeep and stand there, staring at the corpses. He has often told this story, how he thought he saw a pair of living eyes looking out from among the dead. It made his hair stand on end, but slowly and cautiously he made his way around the pile, and then, he clearly remembers coming face-to-face with me, an eight-year-old boy, wide-eyed with terror. In heavily-accented American Yiddish, he asked me, 'How old are you, mein kind?' There were tears in his eyes. 'What difference does it make?' I answered, warily. 'I'm older than you, anyway.' He smiled through his tears and said, 'Why do you think you're older than me?' And I answered, 'Because you cry and laugh like a child. I haven't laughed in a long time, and I don't even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?' " • Primo Levi, a Holocaust Survivor : "Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions." • Ephraim Reichenberg, Holocaust Survivor : “My brother had a nice singing voice, but I couldn't sing. They injected us at the base of the neck with a certain substance that after the war we found out to be cancer cells. The experiment was done time and time again. Mengele would sit on the side and take notes...In 1948, I moved to Israel. I was one of the first soldiers in the IDF. I felt spiritually uplifted, that I - a Jew and a survivor of Auschwitz could fight in a Jewish army." __Ephraim and his brother Menashe were experimented on in the Twins Experiments conducted by Mengele, despite of the fact that the two were not twins. His brother Menashe died in 1946 from the same illness that Ephraim still suffers from. He lost the ability to use his vocal chords later in life, and was unable to speak until 1984, when he regained the ability to speak with the aid of a device manufactured in Germany. • Anne Frank, killed in the Holocaust : “Who has inflicted this upon us? Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example. Who knows, it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we have to suffer now. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any country for that matter; we will always remain Jews, but we want to, too.” • • • Dear readers, as Anne Frank did, we search for meaning in the Holocaust. Beyond the horror, beyond the evil, beyond the genocide, we strive to find a meaning that lifts the unspeakable into something we can grasp as evidence that the soul of humankind is not simply a black hole. And, so often, it is the Jewish people themselves who give us this hope and meaning in their everyday kindness to their fellow man. Israel has treated more than 2,600 Syrians wounded in the civil war. Most of the world is unaware that every single night, desperate women, children and men wounded in the raging Syrian civil war make their way to Israel seeking help from the very same people they consider their enemies. The injured Syrians come to set points on the Israeli-Syrian frontier after nightfall where they're quickly evacuated to safety areas by IDF personnel on the lookout for them. Despite being in a formal state of war with Syria, it's no secret that Israel has allowed more than 2,600 Syrian citizens to cross into Israel for medical help. Most of the wounded are afraid to identify themselves by name or allow their picture to be taken, out of fear of retribution back home for receiving treatment in the Jewish state. Almost all of the refugees are brought to the Ziv medical center in northern Israel, where many of the staff are native Arabic speakers. Most say they've completely changed their minds about Israel after seeing it for themselves. Since the conflict broke out in March of 2011, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and millions have been forced to flee their homes. Many of the victims are children suffering from life-threatening injuries who sometimes remain in Israel for months. Israel is studying housing possibilities for orphans until it becomes safe for them to return home. • Love can be a one-way street, but Israel proves every day its love for people, no matter who they are or what they feel for Jews. It is a love of life that perhaps only Jews -- who looked into the black hole of the Holocaust that spewed evil and the stench of imminent extermination -- can comprehend.