[Politics_CurrentEvents_Group] Holocaust and Bravery Remembrance Day

Holocaust and Bravery Remembrance Day

Source:http://canadafreepr ess.com/index. php/article/ 36228
Holocaust and Bravery Remembrance Day The Holocaust as Seen in 2011by
Ari Busel, in Canada Free Press, Toronto, Canada, May 7, 2011
I t was ten a.m. in Israel on the Holocaust and Bravery Remembrance Day,
and I stood in a city square as the siren started. It sounded somewhat
distant, yet touched every nerve in my body.
People stopped, instantly frozen in their tracks. Cars stopped, their
doors opened and the drivers and passengers exited. No one was honking.
No one was talking. Everyone stood straight, silent, their heads bowed.

In this two-minute freeze-frame time span even the birds ceased their
spring celebration. All was still, an entire nation respecting its
dead, six million of them, as people recalled the Nazis' attempt to
annihilate their very being.

For me it was personal: Most of my family, from both my mother's
and father's side, were exterminated in the Holocaust. Those who
survived of my grandparents' generation are no longer alive. My
parents, young children during the Holocaust, are the last bearers of
live-testimony to the horrors humanity has bestowed on the collective
Jewish presence.

My parents' generation is the story that must be told, for any story
I and my generation can tell is a first hand memory of the real facts
told to us. We have only witnessed the witnesses, not the events.

It is even more personal to me. My grandmother' s last will and
testament stated there is only one place the Jewish people must call
home, the Land of Israel. It was her upbringing as a Hebrew teacher
before the war, her will to survive the war and her dedication to
teaching generations of Israeli children that focused on strengthening
the Jewish State.

Serving in the Israel Defense Forces was an obligation to our country,
no questions asked. No one else would do it for us, and we must be as
strong as possible to ensure the Holocaust is never repeated.

It is this obligation, passed from my grandparents to my parents (my
grandfather fought with the Allied Forces against the Nazis) that I
inherited and stands before me every moment of every day.

Today we live in a more perilous time than the 1930s. Anti-Semitism
wears a different colored cloak, but is more potent than ever before.
Jews in Europe are encouraged not to wear outward signs of their
Judaism. European leaders use stereotypes and blood libels as part of
their mainstream discourse. The number of anti-Semitic incidents rises
constantly, and the rate of increase during the first decade of this
century is much greater than the rate during the previous decade.

In the United States, anti-Semitism is disguised as "legitimate
criticism against Israel." The situation is so egregious that
Israel is demonized by traditional haters and now also by the
mainstream. Israel is equated with Apartheid, Occupation and every
other evildoer in the world. The process of demonization has become so
prevalent and successful that anything bad happening to Israel, Israelis
or Jews anywhere is justified, expected in fact.

And this brings me to my grandparents' will: We must not be quiet.
We must not wait for others to act. We must engage and fight. That is,
if we are to survive, and survive we must.

Osama bin Laden was paid a visit by the United States of America, and
the American President announced that justice has finally been served.
"Justice." On September 11th, nearly 3,000 people perished.
During the five years of the Holocaust, some six million Jewish people
were murdered inhumanelytheir only crime was being a Jew.

Ten years have passed since the attack on the United States, and if it
were not a "decade" commemoration, many would not remember any
more. Geographic distance and time diminish memory. Some haters claim
it was a Zionist scheme. Others say that the United States deserved
what it got.

Now we go back in time some sixty years before that Tuesday morning in
2001. How many really remember? American Jewry did little to help.

The generation that survived is disappearing so fast that soon those who
participated and witnessed the Holocaust first hand will only be a
memory, and once my generation and possibly the next generation is gone,
no one will be left to bear witness to a survivor or a tattoo on a left
arm. The words and propaganda of the "deniers" will resonate
along with the terms "occupiers" and "Zionist
terrorist."

A final indignity? Enormous sums of money sit in the coffers of the
Israeli Government or various NGOs like the Claims Conference. Yet many
(some say most) Holocaust survivors (whose number in Israel is estimated
at 200,000, with six percent dying each year) do not have enough to pay
for medicine or live their last years in dignity, respect and minimal
comfort.

Israel is just waking up to the realization something must be done. For
the first time, the Government of Israel has embarked on a project,
HEART, to collect information about lost property, moveable (like
paintings, jewelry and artworks), non-moveable (like real-estate or
industrial complexes) and other possessions (patents, bank accounts,
insurance policies).

This is the last opportunity to create such a database, and even now it
is most difficult since many of those who were young during the
Holocaust and survived may only remember they lived in a certain village
or have other vague memories.

What will this database do? The Government of Israel is intent on
negotiating with other governments (other than Germany and Austria who
have been paying restitution for decades) on the claims for the heirs of
the survivors. The survivors themselves likely will never see the
results.

There is much to be done, for now time is our fiercest enemy as
survivors are dying. I often tell the story of a visit to the office of
the Claims Conference in Tel Aviv. My grandmother, a Holocaust
survivor, was asked what year she was born. "1914," she
replied. She had two children when World War Two started, my mother and
my uncle. Her husband died, as most other relatives. She, my mother
and my uncle survived.

The Claims Conference bureaucrat responded: "We have not reached
your birth year yet." They never did, not while she was alive (and
she was alive several years after that visit). The bureaucrat and his
colleagues all continue receiving their salaries and pensions, probably
to this very day. "JUSTICE?"

At a press conference yesterday, another reporter was quite critical of
the Claims Conference. I waited until the press conference ended before
speaking with the person who headed the Claims Conference. He reported
to me that every year the German Government expands the definitions of
entitlement, relaxing requirements, adding more beneficiaries. I could
only say a silent prayer that some of this money would indeed reach the
survivors, instead of all the bureaucrats and huge mechanism that cares
more for its own continuation than the task at hand.

The long day started with an annual press conference about Anti-Semitism
at Tel Aviv University, continued with another press conference about
the new HEART project of the Israeli Government and the Jewish Agency
then ended with a private initiative.

If one asks what can one do, with limited resources and little access,
we can learn from one young person, Gilad, who for the past three years
has hosted a Holocaust-Gathering on the Eve of the Remembrance Day. He
invites friends aged in their 20s and 30s, those he knows in person and
those from Facebook, to his condo in Israel. Many dozens of them gather
and because there are not enough chairs, they sit on the stairs and
floor.

Each year he invites a different Holocaust survivor to tell their story.
And so, those who were born some four decades after the Holocaust meet
and hear a survivor bear witness.

This is not a celebration of life. Life sits around and focuses on the
stories of death and survival. Young and restless, they are consumed
with the sights and sounds, the darkness and freezing cold, the cruelty,
diseases and lack of humanity, and the elements of chance and survival
against all odds in the story unfolding before them.

There is no food served, only bottles of water.

There is another, unstated purpose for these get-togethers: To get to
know someone you might like. So life will have continuation, a new
chance for rebirth once again. Despite all, we remain, and we are here
to stay, as are our children, both the born and unborn.

There is no need to attend ceremonies or spend money. Just invite a
Holocaust survivor then open your home and your heart. Utilize
Gilad's example, his friends' determination to forgo any other
activity and gather, for the third year in a row, to bear witness to the
very last remnants of a satanic fire still alive and growing after all
these decades.

This is different from watching a movie, even the best of them, or
listening or viewing a broadcast. I sat mesmerized as I listened to the
two hours of live testimony. I looked around at the young people and
knew they would remember the story forever, never forget the Holocaust
and understand they must do everything in their power to protect Israel.

I was reminded of my grandmother' s willthat we must
fightand so I continue. I wait for no one else and know that our
fight is just and that we must prevailwe have no other choice.

The most elegant acts seem so simple, yet are so effective. Let us
emulate Gilad's tradition, for we will feel better knowing we are
doing something to ensure, "Never Again!"