Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Today I heard a Holocaust survivor cry

BY RENA

Why do so many right wing charedim insist on not acknowledging Yom Hashoah? The few who do acknowledge it only do so to make everyone aware of the reasons there should not be a day set aside to remember the Holocaust.

I read a blog post on just that yesterday. The blogger writes how pathetic it is that people think they are doing something great by updating their Facebook statuses to reflect their thoughts on Yom Hashoah. According to this blogger, none of us really care and none of the Holocaust survivors are around anymore (or if they are, they are all in nursing homes and not mentally of aware of what's going on anymore), so why are we all pretending to care? Then this pompous ignoramus goes on to congratulate himself for at least acknowledging that he doesn't have it in him to really care, and since the fact that he doesn't care bothers him, somehow that makes him better than all the Facebookers out there who took "6 precious seconds... away from using Facebook".

For starters, I have three grandparents alive who are holocaust survivors, and they are all of sound mind and clearly remember what they went through. I absolutely do care, but there is not that much that most of us can do other than remembering the atrocities that took place. And the best way to do that is to have a special day set aside to remember.

Today I saw a beautifully heartbreaking presentation about Yom Hashoah at a Modern Orthodox school. Students and parents alike were all moved as together we all remembered and honored those who perished in or survived the horror. I feel confident saying that 99% of Bais Yaakov students are not even aware that today is Holocaust Remembrance day.

Today I heard a Holocaust survivor cry as he said Kaddish and sang Kel Malei Rachamim.

I will never forget.

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