Yom Ha’Shoah Ve’Hagvurah Memorial Day, April 7, 2013
George Santayana, the Spanish-American philosopher, famously said “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Regrettably, in the 21st Century, only 68 years since the allies brought Nazi Germany and Japan to submission, in Europe, the anti-Semitism poisonous snake is rearing its ugly head again. Europe has simply failed to learn from its darkest days of its much bloody history against Jews and others, much of which was stained and set up by anti-Semitism. It appears that the European continent is now condemned to repeat those same mistakes once again even if we say “Never Again.”
Since WWII the nation of Israel has been under trauma. So, yes, each year we, Jews, repeat the Shoah-Holocaust story and we will repeat and tell it for eternity, as it is never enough, praying and making sure it will never happen again.
As each year in Los Angeles, California, several hundred people, among them consuls of several countries, attended the memorial service at the Museum Of The Holocaust (LAMOTH) in Pan Pacific Park.
Never Once Say It
Among the speakers were E. Randol Schoenberg, President and acting Executive Director of LAMOTH, David Segal, Israel Consul General, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Jona Goldrich, among the founders of the museum, and Theodore Bikel who also sang, in Yiddish, the Partisans’ song Zog Nit Keyn Mol, meaning, ‘Never Once Say it’. The keynote speaker was Ruth Kluger, a Holocaust survivor, born in 1931, who was only six years old when Hitler marched into Vienna and today a Professor Emeritus of German literature at the University of California, Irvine and the author of the bestseller weiter leben: Eine Jugend (Continue to Live. One Youth), about her childhood in the Third Reich.
What is to the write about such a somber event? What is to write about the mass murder the Nazi German perpetrating against the Jewish nation for no other reason but for them being Jews?
What is to the write about a world that turned its back on the Jews when they were seeking to escape the Nazis claws and find shelter outside of Nazi Europe?
Holocaust: Camouflage For Mass Murder
The word Holocaust is a camouflage for the words Mass Murder; YES, the German Nazi nation perpetrated a mass murder of Six Million [some say even more] Jews, almost a mass murder of the entire People.
There was only one Shoah and we must not be shy to call it the worst mass crime of one type of human beings against another type of human beings, in the history of mankind.
But what is worse to know is that Hitler did not want to kill the Jews, he just did not want them living in the land he ruled. But when the world did not want them either and, at large, closed the doors of possible refuge, Hitler found the “easy” Final Solution, which was to kill the entire Jewish nation and he almost succeeded.
Crimes Against Humanity Are Everywhere
So when we talk about crimes against humanity, we can point fingers at many nations that, directly and indirectly, gave a hand to the Nazi Germans to perpetrate their evil deeds.
The Shoah was the amputating of the Jewish People’s limbs but not their soul. One of three Jews on earth was murdered in the 4 years of the war. Miraculously, these limbs started to grow back with the establishment of the State of Israel. But the trauma is far from over and forgotten because, the Shoah is an event that is larger than life and too big not to remember. It is the defining crime against humanity.
Yes, God commanded the Jewish people to have forgiveness and mercy in their heart, but not foolishness. So I am here, as each year, to remind my fellow Jews: Stay vigilant and never forget what can happen again.
Today, when the Jewish State of Israel, the Jewish Nation’s only state, is attacked by any mean possible, whether it is political, economic, via media, and cyber, lies and deception, each Jew needs to remain wary and mean when he or she say, NEVER AGAIN.
The history of the Shoah is the guiding light to the future, based on the evil history of the past.
There will never be justice for 6Million murdered Jews, among them 1.5Million children who did not even exactly know what to be a Jew meant and for sure did not understand why Germans, in uniform decorated in the Swastika badges hated them so much, so they hunted them in order to kill them.
There will never be real justice for the 6Million innocent dead Jews. Give a voice to the voiceless.
Remember Never to Forget!
The song ‘Zog Nit Keyn Mol’, also referred to as Partizaner Lid or, the Partisans’ song, was written in 1943 by Hirsh Glick, a young Jewish inmate of the Vilna Ghetto. The song is considered the anthem of the Holocaust survivors and is sung in memorial services around the world.
The title means “Never Once Say it,” has derived from the first line of the song, “Never say that you are going on the final road.” During WWII, “Zog Nit Keynmol” was adopted by a number of Jewish partisans’ groups operating in eastern Europe. It became a symbol of resistance against Nazi Germany’s persecution of the Jews and the Shoah.
Hirsch was inspired to write the song by news of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the song needs to become the second anthem of the Jewish people after Ha’Tikvah: Never say you are going on your final road, as you did not, and you have become a free nation in your own, ancient country, Israel.
English version of Jewish Partisan’s Anthem
Never say you are going on your final road,
Although leadened skies block out blue days,
Our longed-for hour will yet come
Our step will beat out – we are here!
From a land of green palm trees to the white land of snow
We arrive with our pain, with our woe,
Wherever a spurt of our blood fell,
On that spot shall spurt forth our courage and our spirit.
The morning sun will brighten our day
And yesterday will disappear with our foe.
But if the sun delays to rise at dawn,
Then let this song be a password for generations to come.
This song is written with our blood, not with lead,
It is not a song of a free bird flying overhead.
Amid crumbling walls, a people sang this song,
With grenades in their hands.
So, never say the road now ends for you,
Although skies of lead block out days of blue.
Our longed-for hour will yet come –
Our step will beat out – we are here!
