Teach Them to Your Children
Horrors are easy to come by these days. Horrors arrive in torrential rains or waves, or rise from the earth when subterranean rock plates collide.
There is something altogether different--a sense of truth, perhaps--when one human kills another, however; you wonder about reasons and God, morality and faith. Horror derives from a lack of apocalyptic finality after millions die in trench fighting or succumb to rampant disease in World War I; or when neighbors kill neighbors in Civil Wars throughout time The world continues. Humanity survives, though somewhere in the recesses of our souls, we believe it should not.
Auschwitz names one large concentration camp among many--camps that moved beyond internment or work camps, quickly transforming into systemized killing camps. Sixty years ago this camp was liberated. Some survivors remain, though not many. Soon, none will exist and then we will have a few museums, some literature, a landmark or two, and debates that will grow more and more abhorrent as time creates distance.
There are other examples of genocide throughout history, examples, even, of such killing since the end of World War II. Nevertheless, there is something so near about the Holocaust that causes people to shy from the concept; the proximity can metamorph the disinterested prolitariat into flagbearers for this cause or that belief. This genocide took place in my part of the world, the Western World, the Civilized World as we think of it, even if in an age of politically correct terminology we do not say it. But our relatives and ancestors were born in Germany or Poland or Austria or Russia. The United States is populated by these peoples. You and I killed these people, and we were killed, as well.
At Auschwitz the trains would arrive, and human beings, crowbarred into airless train cars, spilled out into the station. Early in the war, these human beings had no idea where they were, where mothers or fathers or sons or daughters were. Later, rumors of Auschwitz spread, but were not believed. In order to believe, they had to experience the first Selection for themselves.
It was this simple: some were selected for work; some were selected for asphyxiation in gas chambers.
The famous author, chemist, and Auschwitz survivor, Primo Levi wrote,
"Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house, when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you."
Shema, Primo Levi
Those who do not remember are doomed to repeat. Do not forget. In ten years, no Auschwitz survivors will remain.
Copyright ©2004, ©2005, ©2006 Joshua Suchman. All rights reserved.
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