Auschwitz survivor: Do we still have ears to listen? Take the moment to renew the vow ‘never forget’
Auschwitz images (Warning: very graphic)
Sixty years ago today, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz death camp and the human wreckage within. What the Russians found was representative of an evil impossible to describe and even more difficult to imagine. The legacy of Auschwitz is a stain that will, and should never be, removed from our collective memory.
Soon history will speak of Auschwitz at best with the impersonal voice of researchers and novelists, at worst with the malevolence of demagogues and falsifiers. This week the last of us, with a multitude of heads of state and other dignitaries, are gathering at that cursed site to remind the world that past can be prologue, that the mountains of human ashes dispersed there are a warning to humanity of what may still lie ahead.
The genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda and the recent massacres of innocents in the United States, Spain, Israel, Indonesia and so many other countries have demonstrated our inability to learn from the blood-soaked past. Auschwitz, the symbol of absolute evil, is not only about that past, it is about the present and the future of our newly enflamed world, where a coupling of murderous ideologues and means of mass destruction can trigger new catastrophes.
Some of us still hold out hope that mankind can learn from it’s past crimes and mistakes. Then something happens to demonstrate all over again that those who do not understand history truly are doomed to repeat it.
We should all be grateful to the remaining victims for the example they have set for us and their refusal to allow us to forget the Evil that murdered six million whose only “crime” was their Jewish heritage. Before long, though, there will be no more Nazi death camp victims to serve as examples of the evil that Man is capable of committing upon Man. Will we continue to maintain that terrible memory in the hope that nothing like it will ever happen again? While I try to hope for the best, I fear the worst- and recent history has borne out that fear.
If you have a moment today, take some time to remember those six million victims. You may not have known any of them, and sixty years IS a long time, but these were people, just like you and I, with friends, lovers, and families. But for a few twists of fate, history, and timing, we could well have been one of them. We should all be grateful that we weren’t. Next time, though, they could be coming for you. Or me. Or someone we love. We should never forget what atrocities that the combination of power, corruption, and pure Evil can be capable of.
