Dark Days

Today is the national Holocaust memorial day in Israel. My family too had come here from Europe some 50 years ago leaving behind many dead but I never heard about it much at home. It was a subject "not suitable for children" and when the older generation passed away there was no one really left to talk about it. Three years ago it all changed when I went to Poland with a military delegation. For ten days we toured this cursed land where green forests and lonely country roads hide a dark history. My strongest moment was in Auschwitz, the murder factory in south west Poland. In this giant compound near a picturesque town millions of Jews, homosexuals and others were sorted like cattle and sent to the gas chambers. The fortunate ones slaved in the nearby ammunition factory until too weak or sick to work. Very few survived. As I stood there in silence wearing my Israeli Defense Forces uniform, under an Israeli flag, I felt a new awareness. The full circle of horror and rebirth was completed. Walking along the wooden cabins where the prisoners lived waiting to die I had an idea and used my cell phone to call a relative in Israel who survived this camp. She was in Auschwitz as a young girl and survived to tell. By phone instructions she guided me to her cabin. There I was, standing in this stinky stable like place where she had frozen at night and counted dead bodies in the morning. There I was with my phone at hand, a casual visitor, a proud survivor.

My casual reader, please remember those dark days. Never forget what humans can do to each other. Be strong, be proud.