we must remember

warning: this post may be all over the place.  i've got a lot in my head this morning.

i just finished reading a book by jodi picoult.  she is my favorite author. this one was called the storyteller.  it was about the holocaust. i'm not going to go into the details of the book because i think everyone should read it. i'm not saying that because i'm jewish and it's about the holocaust.  i'm saying it because it was wonderfully written.  i don't want to spoil it for you.  you get the idea though.  we know what happened during world war II.  i can't believe there are assholes out there that say it never happened.  over 11 million people were killed, 6 million jews.  how can that be denied?  there are photos and videos! the nazis were proud of what they did.  now people say we made it up?  fuck them!

(see i told you i would get lose my place in what i wanted to say)

when i was a teenager i didn't like learning about the holocaust.  it depressed me (as it would anyone).  my mom made us go watch schindler's list in the theater.  i was upset for days after that.  as an adult, i understand her point.  we need to know what happened.  we need to remember.  as a teenager though, all i could think was, that would have been me.

if you know me IRL, you know that i'm weak.  my friends have pegged me as the first to die if we were ever in a horror movie.  this offends me, but there is a bit of truth.  i was real sick as a child. couldn't even run the mile in gym class due to my asthma.  was in and out of the hospital. always got sick.  as an adult, it's gotten better, but i still have my health issues. 

my point?  if i had lived in europe in the early 1940s as a young jewish female, i would have gone to a concentration camp.  i know i would have died in that camp.  i am weak.  i couldn't have done the work. i probably would have gotten sick.  if not killed at the hands of a soldier, i would have died from disease, hunger, or weakness.  that's a scary thought for a teenage girl.  hell, it's a scary thought for a woman in her late 30s.

when i get over the fear that the thoughts of the holocaust brings, i get mad.  mad because i would have died simply because i was jewish.  mad that the nazis (trying not to call them germans because not all germans were bad) felt that they were better than everyone else.  mad because so many people, including americans, let it happen.  mad because it still happens.  not to jews so much, but in other countries.

reading picoult's book was difficult. mostly because i know that when she described the holocaust and what was going on in the camps it wasn't a tale that she crafted.  she was writing about stuff that really happened.  her characters were fictional, but there are so many real people that we could put in their place. it really happened.  the nazis really did those things.  the jews were really tortured.  i couldn't put the book down though.  i had to read it.  i had to see what happened to her characters.  i knew the outcome of the war.  there would still  be 6 million jews dead at the end. but i had to know what happened to the people she created.

in 11th grade i had an american history teacher who made a difference.  he brought history to life.  he went on to do great things by keeping the memory of those who died alive.  his motto was that if you didn't learn from history you were condemed to repeat it.  i carry that motto with me today.  we must learn from the mistakes of the past and make sure they don't happen again.  he's just one man and can't do it alone, but over the years he has educated his students about the holocaust and made it more than just something that happened a long time ago to a group of people in europe.

when i taught 8th grade we did a unit on anne frank.  one year i had my students ask if i could find a survivor to come speak.  it touched me because these selfish 13 and 14 year olds actually wanted to learn about something that didn't have to do with them.  it was an ordeal with my principal, but i worked it out so a lot of my students could attend.  the survivor (mr. kase) came.  he told me he was only up for talking about an hour.  it was too much of an emotional toll on him.  he spoke of watching his sister killed in front of him. of what he endured in the camps. of his survival.  my students learned a lot that day.  they jokingly thanked me for making them sad, but they appreciated the experience.  it became real to them.

what makes me sad in the year 2013 is that there aren't many survivors left. soon they will all be gone. we will lose their knowledge.  sure there are books, museums, documentaries.  but those aren't the same as seeing a person stand in front of you and tell you the horrors they survived.  it makes me wonder what we do for our children and their children and their children to help them realize the tragedy that occured in world war II and the importance of never letting it happen again. 

i don't say all this as someone who is jewish.  lately, religion has not been all that important to me.  i say this as a human.  a human who belongs to a group of people who were once singled out and murdered just for being part of that group.  it's important for jewish people to know of the holocaust and never let it happen again.  to know what their ancestors endured.  but it's important as humans for us to know what happened.  if one group can be singled out, then it can happen to another.  in fact it does.  we can't stand by and let people die.  doesn't it make us just as guilty as the ones that are pulling the trigger?