International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today if you did not know is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. All over the world, people are taking the time out of their days and lives to remember those that were murdered in the Holocaust or Shoah. I see things a little differently however. Many of the survivors of the Holocaust are passing away, and so does the history. For instance, today I read that 1 of 4 survivors is living in poverty. HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN? There are many people who believe the Holocaust never happened. There are also people who want to see the "Final Solution" actually take place. Antisemitism in general is still very prevalent in today's Europe. Just look at Anti-Semitic political parties growing in Hungary and  in Greece. To see Anti-Semitic acts of violence in France, which  culminated in the Toulouse massacre of Jewish school children and their Rabbi. Now today Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, defended the actions of Mussolini at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. This is shocking to me to hear a head of state say such a thing. Wait, Ahmadinejad denies the whole Holocaust so I take that statement back. I find it just rude and insensitive.

What infuriates me more is that some people take the time on Holocaust remembrance days to probe the Israeli Palestinian Conflict  .A few years ago, I was on my university campus and heard someone say "I hate how the Jews always say never again." This quite frankly pissed me off so much that went to the person and told them how completely insensitive and ignorant her comment was. I responded by telling her, " Do you know what if feels like to be senselessly murdered? Do you know what it means to singled out just because you were born into a certain group? Do you know what it feels like to survive and know that the rest of your family perished?" To this the person decided to tell me that genocide happened again, the Palestinians have been persecuted. People in Sudan, Rwanda, and Cambodia have experienced genocide. I could not believe this person related the Holocaust to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For me at least, the conflict should never be mentioned in the same sentence as the Holocaust. There is no systematic concentration camps found in the West Bank, Gaza, and other Arab nations where Palestinian refugees reside. Do you see Palestinians  being thrown into gas chambers awaiting their inevitable death? Do you see an Israeli Eugenics program trying to explain why Israelis and Jews are scientifically more suit to living than Palestinians? Is there an Israeli Josef Mengele doing experiments on Palestinians to see how they react? The answer is simply no. Yes I agree with the fact that the Palestinians should have the right to self-determination. I agree that atrocities have occurred to the Palestinians. The only thing that hurts me is that people compare the two events. They are separate and should be kept separate. This is my rant. I am sorry, but this is my opinion. We should take time in our day today to remember the lives that perished for no other reason but for being Jewish. We should remember Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Belzec, and Chelmno. We should remember those that fought for their freedom to life in the ghettos of Warsaw. We should remember those that risked their lives, just so that did the right thing and saved a life. No one can go back in history, history is sealed. The future however, is not sealed. We still have the power to stand up and say "Never Again". I hope all of you who read this say "Never Again", but not just for the Jewish people, but for society and humanity in general. With that I say to genocide, "Never Again".