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April 25, 2006
Holocaust Day of Remembrance
April 25, 2006, is a day of remembrance for six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust
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The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as our nation’s annual commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust, and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to those victims.
This year, the Days of Remembrance fall between Sunday, April 23, and Sunday, April 30, 2006, with Holocaust Remembrance Day observed on April 25. The theme for this year’s commemoration is “Legacies of Justice,” in honor of the courage of, and the precedents set by, those who testified during the trials of Nazi war criminals. The theme also pays tribute to those who tirelessly work for the cause of justice, both then and now.
Today, more than ever before, individual and communal willingness to seek justice after the Holocaust serves as a powerful example of how our nation can – and must – respond to unprecedented crimes. We must vigorously pursue justice for the victims of such acts of hatred and inhumanity, not only for their sake but for the sake of present and future generations.
The Holocaust was an unprecedented crime – millions of murders, wrongful imprisonments, and tortures, rape, theft, and destruction. In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, the world was faced with a challenge – how to seek justice for an almost unimaginable scale of criminal behavior. The International Military Tribunal (IMT) held at Nuremberg, Germany, attempted to meet this immense challenge on a legal basis. This year, we mark the 60th anniversary of the IMT.
Nazi Germany planned and implemented the Holocaust under the cover of World War II. It was in this context that the IMT was created, a trial of judgment for war crimes. The IMT was not a court convened to mete out punishment for the Holocaust alone. The tribunal was designed to document and redress crimes committed in the course of the most massive conflict the world has ever known.
The Holocaust was, in the legal language of the IMT, “a crime against humanity.” Convened within months of the end of the war, from November 20, 1945, until the verdicts were delivered on October 1, 1946, the tribunal at Nuremberg set precedents: in international law, in documentation of the historical record – in seeking some beginning, however inadequate, in a search for justice.
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Wild Thing's comment......
We must never forget what happened in those six years. We must not forget the six million who left us. However, I believe that we must also remember that despite his best efforts, Hitler was NOT able to annihilate the entire Jewish people. Though the numbers have been reduced, Israel is still a living, thriving nation.
There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel. Suffice it to note the annual flood of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; or the public opinion polls taken in Europe, which single out Israel as a danger to world peace; or the divestment campaigns being waged in the US against Israel; or the attempts to delegitimize Israel’s very existence.
The complicity of the Allies in WW II is mirrored by the support the PLO has been receiving from Europe, China and Russia to this very day.
If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and the Jewish people
against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.
My Israel page at my website
* AbbaGav
Posted by Wild Thing at April 25, 2006 02:18 AM
Comments
Thanks for the hat tip, and for the great site...really amazing! With your permission, I'm going to use your post on Yom Hashoah with my 7th grade Hebrew School class today. I've added you to my blogroll, and hope you may do the same at some time. In the mean time, I'll keep reading!
Posted by: scottage at April 25, 2006 11:02 AM
Great post and a great reminder. Never forgive, never forget!!! History looks like it's repeating itself with the onset of the new butchers from the Middle East and their insatiable quest for blood and their cult of death.
Posted by: Jack at April 25, 2006 12:05 PM
Hi scottage you certainly can use it and anything else you like. Thank you so much for adding me. When I went to your blog I jotted down to be sure to add you to my blog roll tonight when I get home from work.
Thank you again so much.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 25, 2006 12:12 PM
Hi Jack,you are so right about history. Thank you so much Jack.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 25, 2006 12:23 PM
Wow, really beautiful post. The image of the Israeli flag was very effective -- was that taken from the Gaza disengagement? These are anxious times indeed. Thanks so much Wild Thing.
Posted by: AbbaGav at April 25, 2006 03:15 PM
Years ago as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I had profound experience, the depth of which I didn't fathom till years later. Being an Irish Catholic, I went to a Parochial school for eight years. The kids I grew up with were Catholic. Italian, Irish, and German, predominantly. As a result, my exposure to Jewish kids in the neighborhood was somewhat limited even though there was a heavy Jewish population there. When I got into Public school, and met with Jewish kids, the teachings of elementary school became confused. It was drilled into us that the Catholic religion was the only true religion and on and on. These new kids though didn't seem any different from me. Anyone who knows anything about New York will tell you that It is a very territorial place. Racism and bigotry abounds, born out of an overly egotisical sense of pride of ones background rather than an intentional disdain for others who are different. There was alot of friction between Italians and Irish, Blacks and Whites, Catholics and Jews, but somehow we, our generation of kids were able to bridge the river of predjudice that ran through the city and really learn about one another. There was a comraderie amongst us that, after living in many different cities in the US and Caribbean, I have never seen or felt since.
One day, at Eddie's, a Jewish friend's house, I sat and had dinner with him and his mother. We were joined by some other friends, Jay, also a Jew, Tony, an Italian, and Paulie a German. We were kids of 13-14 years old. When Mrs. Gordon was setting the table, I noticed some writing on her forearm. When I asked her what it was Jay and Eddie exchanged glances and looked at me as though I had just cursed in front of Eddie's Mother. The room was suddenly quiet and Mrs. Gordon sat down and explained that during the war the Germans tattoed her when she was in a camp. At the time, I really didn't comprehend the terror that woman must have endured. Though my Dad fought in Germany and was shot in the arm, he never talked about the war, doesn't to this day. Naively,I asked her if she hated the Germans. Paulie, the German kid was pale. Mrs. Gordon, knowing Paulies background said she didn't hate anyone for being part of any race and what happened then was long ago and far away but is was something she would never forget. She also said that we should never judge people by how they look or what their last name is, only by what they do.
She served Paulie first.
I don't think I'll ever forget that even though it meant less to me then than it does now. And on this day of remembrance of the Holocaust we should remind ourselves that yes, it did happen, and yes it can happen again. To any of us. We need to always be vigilant and judge those by what they do.
Billy
Posted by: Billy at April 25, 2006 05:40 PM
HI AbbaGav yes the Gaza disengagement is exactly where I got the picture of the Flag. Thank you AbbaGav.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 25, 2006 07:27 PM
Billy that is a great story you shared. Thank you so much!
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 25, 2006 07:28 PM
Wonderful post. Thank you.
Posted by: Kathi at April 25, 2006 10:22 PM
Kathi nice to meet you, thank you so much.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 26, 2006 12:03 AM
Chrissie
You have hit the nail on the head. There is antisemetism growing just as it did before WW2 if the moslems nuke Isreal then they will find excuses to justify these monsters till they come for us.
Posted by: Jack Hamilton at April 26, 2006 12:13 AM
Hi Jack thank you, and thank you for commenting on this.
"they will find excuses to justify these monsters till they come for us.".........I think they will too.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 26, 2006 02:26 AM
Well done.
Posted by: Jack at April 30, 2006 01:05 AM
