Blogger Notes

What did you do on Holocaust Remembrance day this year? Did you even know when it was? Well, to remind you, it was Tuesday 21 April. I would imagine that most of you were going about your daily business, at work, running the kids to and from school, out shopping, lunching with friends - usual every day stuff that doesn't differentiate one day from the other. Maybe you heard a news item about it during the course of that day but only because of the outrage caused by President Ahmadinejad of Iran at the UN conference in Switzerland.

Ironically, this years Holocaust Remembrance Day fell on the 120th anniversary of Hitler's birth. Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu said to his Cabinet on that day that while Israel commemorates the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis, "in Switzerland, the guest of honour is a racist and a Holocaust denier who doesn't conceal his intention to wipe Israel off the face of this earth".

During my short time blogging, I have come across some very interesting people. But there is one lady whose blog I have begun reading and whose stories and poems I keep returning to. She is a survivor of the Holocaust. She is a living link to the utter horrors of that most darkest time in human history. She has shared her thoughts and her pain through her poems and stories and she has given us all something so terribly important. Even if you don't continue reading the rest of this, please visit her site, http://deborahrey.wordpress.com/, work your way through her writings, her poem, 'Free the Soul mit Arbeit' and 'Auschwitz insomnia', which will stir such emotions in you.

Our children are becoming disassociated with the past. For people my age, it was our Grandparents who fought in World War 2, it was their generation who wore the yellow star,
who were herded like sheep into ghettos, who were marched into the cattle trucks, crammed into those squalid, wooden carriages with straw on the floor and bars at the windows. Who, when the doors were opened, were met with the scenes of teeth bearing dogs, jeering Nazi's and ghastly smells in the air from the crematorium, where in a very short time, the majority of them would be.

The purpose of this is to make sure it is never forgotten. That the suffering cannot ever happen again. That maybe by reading Deborah's writings, you realise that the past is not so distant, she is a survivor who writes her heart and soul to share her experiences to ensure we do not forget.

For the doubters, look at this site, http://isurvived.org/home.html and maybe you will doubt no more. Ask yourself how one human being could possibly do this to another. This is not about God or faith, it is about the attempted annihilation of a race of people in the most grotesque ways possible.

With the uprising of the BNP in Britain it becomes imperative that we do not allow future generations to ever forget. To become complacent in this very turbulent world is an extremely dangerous thing to do. People say it could never happen again - I don't believe that for one minute. If you watched the way Nick Griffin's minders pushed people in the streets when he was being bombarded with eggs outside Parliament last week, even though they were under the watchful gaze of television cameras, shows there is always possibility.

Teach your children and your children's children. Teach them to have respect and compassion for people from every faith and of every colour. Teach them that only violence comes from hatred. Teach them the past so that they can protect the future.

Let us never fear the cattle trucks again.
Let us never be segregated and dehumanised again.
Let us never be gassed and burned again.
Let us never forget the six million who were.

The Holocaust - Lest we forget.