#national holocaust remembrance day

[chorus-communities]

since it's Holocaust remembrance day today, and a lot of locations mentioned in stories and articles are polish, i just wanna share some pronounciations for stuff:

it's not warsaw, it's Warszawa

it's not pronounced kra-cow, it's pronounced Kra-cov

what used to be auschwitz is now oświęcim.

one fifth of the polish pre-war population was killed over the course of world war 2, the majority of which were polish jews.

please at least have respect for our language and our cities.

[daily-lego-sets]

LEGO DUPLO:

Creative Cakes

Set: 6785

2012

Pieces: 55

[selkiesstories]

[holocaustremembranceday]

'Remember our name'.

An extraordinary exhibition will open for the first time in the world, at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 26 January 2023.

[awellrespectedcavetroll]

I know why this was parked here, I know what week it is. But it’s still so stark and abrupt amidst the tourists taking selfies and the Volo teams playing kickball. Which I guess is pretty much the point.

[ami-ven]

Blessed Yom Hashoah

[tikkunolamresistance]

27th January marks Holocaust Remembrance Day. When we think of the millions of lives taken by the Nazi regime. A regime that spurred a systemic white supremacist, ethnonationalist manifesto. A sepratist ideology of a supreme ethnicity, a supreme race, that had been festering across Europe for centuries. Millions of sacred lives, Jewish lives, taken in the name of supremacy. Of hatred and violence.

Millions of Jewish people, Soviet and Polish Citizens, communists, Rromani people, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of War and Queer people were murdered during the Nazi regime. Millions of lives were brutally taken whilst the Nazi regime convinced Germany, through a copious force of propaganda, that those lives were the real threat. That it were those lives who were inhumanely violent, were not just, they were deemed a threat to Nazi society.

Hitler and the Nazis promoted the idea of a master race— an Aryan, German race that needed to be protected as they thought that was the product of “racial purity”. And to Nazism, the Jewish people were the biggest threat to their sepratist, extremist ideology of racial purity. Initially, the Nazi leadership tried to force Jews out of Germany completely, with propaganda encouraging the dehumanisation of Jews to facilitate exile and the subsequent Holocaust of Jewish people in Europe.

“Rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures – these are just some of the animals the Nazis used to deride and dehumanize Jews. They used words too. In a new linguistic analysis of dozens of Nazi speeches, articles, pamphlets and posters, researchers show how this process of anti-Semetic dehumanization, which began before the Nazis took power and helped fuel the party’s popularity, was modulated to justify atrocity: in the years before the Holocaust.”

These lives, for purely existing, posed as a threat to the Nazis violently sepratist ideology. Propaganda subjugated German citizens with the power of deception; indoctrinating a people with the belief of superiority, purity and organic virtue. Simplifying the regimes ideological complexities to be palatable, unquestionable and targeting individualism. The ideological sepratism had indoctrinated millions into following the belief that Jewish people were sub-human— an undoubted threat to German people, values and society— and this was only achievable through the already pre-established rampant antisemitism that festered through out Medieval Europe, from Christian accusations of “killing Jesus”, to blood libel, the accusation of poisoned wells, and forcing Jews to chose either baptism or death.

“The mood changed markedly in around the year 1100, at the time of the First Crusade. Hordes of religious fanatics from all social classes, driven by a longing for redemption, set forth to kill infidels in the Middle East and to liberate holy Jerusalem. It stood to reason that they should also combat perceived enemies of Christ at home. Jews were hounded and forced to choose between baptism or death.”

The Holocaust happened because for generations, Europe failed to crack down on antisemitism. Christianisation spread through colonialism and with it, they carried antisemitism to new lands. The Holocaust happened because the Nazi party could convince millions of people of racial supremacy and purity. Far-Right ideology holds onto sepratist endorsement when they enforce anti-immigration laws, Islamophobic policies in France and the desperation of English nationalism. The Holocaust happened because Western superpowers only saw the Nazi imperial expansion as a threat to the Western hegemony.

The Holocaust of millions of Jewish people happened, and the effects of which are felt to this day. Every single day. The pain is carried through generations, for now there is a hole in every Jewish soul. We still feel the anguish, the pain. The frustration that this feels so never-ending.

And it is that pain, that fear, that drives us to say that with every last fighting breath, like the Maccabees who faught for our liberation, like King David who defeated a giant with a slingshot and stone and unbridled courage — Never again, for anybody. We will fight with all that we have. For such a magnitude of slaughter and pain should never touch this Earth for as long as we stand. We cannot carry forth our pain like a baton, we must hold it, a sword, to the enemy and ensure liberation of all feet that touch this Earth. They will not make our people, the Jewish people, into a proxy for their imperial expansion and sepratist Western values.

Never again, for anybody, for all life is sacred.

Never again, for anybody, and certainly not in our name.

Never again, for anybody, and that means Palestine.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #17

May 3-10 2024

Vice President Harris announced 5.5 billion dollars to build affordable housing and address homelessness. The grants will go to 1,200 communities across all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico. 1.3 billion will go to HUD's HOME program which builds, buys, and rehabs affordable housing for rent or ownership. 3.3 billion is headed to Community Development Block Grants which supports housing as well as homeless services, and expanding economic opportunities. Remaining funds focus on building housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, Housing for people struggling with HIV/AIDS, transitional housing for those with substance-use disorder, and money to support homeless shelters and homeless prevention programs.

At the 3rd meeting of the Los Angeles Declaration��group in Guatemala Security of State Blinken announced $578 million in new US aid to Latin America. The Los Angeles Declaration is a partnership between the US and 20 other nations in the Americas to address immigration, combat human trafficking, and support economic development and improved quality of life for people in poor nations in the Americas. The bulk of the aid, over $400 million will go to humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people. Inside of Venezuela over 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to decades of political and economic instability. Over 7 million more have been forced to flee the country and live in poverty across the Americas. The aid will help Venezuelans both inside and outside of Venezuela.

The Department of Energy lead an effort to get the G7 to agree to phase out coal by the early 2030s. The G7 is a collection of the 7 largest Industrial economies on Earth, the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy. To avoid catastrophic climate change the International Energy Agency believes coal needs to be phased out by 2035. However this has been a sticking point with the G7 since 1/3rd of Japan and 1/4th of Germany's energy comes from Coal. This agreement to phase out represents a major breakthrough and the US plans to press for even wider agreement on the issue at the G20 meeting in November.

President Biden announced a major investment deal in Racine, Wisconsin, site of the failed Trump Foxconn deal. In 2018 then President Trump visited Racine and declared the planned Foxconn plant "the eighth wonder of the world.". However the promised 13,000 jobs never materialized and the Taiwan based Foxconn after bulldozing 100s of homes and farms decided not to build. President Biden inked a deal with Microsoft for the land formally given to Foxconn which will bring 2,000 new jobs to Racine to help replace the 1,000 job losses during Trump's Presidency in the community.

200 tribal governments and the US territories of American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, published climate action plans. The plans were paid for by the Biden Administration as part of a 5 billion dollar Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. The federal government is supporting all 50 states, territories, DC, and tribal governments to draft climate action plans, which will be used to apply for more than 4 billion dollars in grants to help turn plans into reality

As part of marking Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Biden Administration announced a number of action aimed at combating antisemitism and supporting the Jewish Community. This included $400 million in new funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The Program has supported Synagogues and Jewish Community Centers with security improvements like bullet proof windows and trainings for staff in how to handle active shooter and hostage situations. The Department of Education issued guidance to all schools districts and federally funded colleges stressing that antisemitism is banned under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These actions come as part of the Biden Administration's National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism, the first ever national strategy addressing the issue by any Administration.

USAID announced $220 million in additional humanitarian aid to Yemen. This new funding will bring US aid to Yemen over the last 10 years to nearly $6 billion. Currently 18 million Yemenis are estimated as needing humanitarian assistance, 9 million of them children, and the UN believes nearly 14 million face imminent risk of famine. The US remains the single largest donor nation to humanitarian relief in Yemen.

The Department of Interior announced nearly $150 million to help communities fight drought. The funds will support 42 projects across 10 western states. This is part of the President's $8.3 billion dollar investment in the nations water infrastructure over the next 5 five years.

[crimethinc]

How can it be that immediately after Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Israeli military is preparing a ground invasion of Rafah? The invasion is bound to cause the senseless deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian children. Many figures in the Israeli government have made it clear that their chief goal is to render Gaza completely uninhabitable.

"The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and leveled flat, just like in Auschwitz."

-David Azulai, head of the City Council of Metula

"The idea that an understanding of the genocide, that a memory of the holocausts, can only lead people to want to dismantle the system, is erroneous. The continuing appeal of nationalism suggests that the opposite is truer, namely that an understanding of genocide has led people to mobilize genocidal armies, that the memory of holocausts has led people to perpetrate holocausts. The sensitive poets who remembered the loss, the researchers who documented it, have been like the pure scientists who discovered the structure of the atom. Applied scientists used the discovery to split the atom’s nucleus, to produce weapons which can split every atom’s nucleus; Nationalists used the poetry to split and fuse human populations, to mobilize genocidal armies, to perpetrate new holocausts."

-Fredy Perlman, Jewish anti-Zionist, one of the few members of his family who survived the Holocaust

https://crimethinc.com/GazaGenocide

[fdelopera]

Never Again is NOW

This evening marks the beginning of Yom HaShoah. This Jewish holiday and Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Yom HaShoah is different than International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we mourn the 6 million Jews, as well as the Romani and all the others who were systematically slaughtered by the Nazis during World War II.

Yom HaShoah is the day for Jews mourn our dead and to remember the Jews who heroically fought back against the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. We mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered the LAST time the entire world was infected by the mind-virus of Jew-hate.

In the midst of this current global tidal wave of Jew-hate, we Jews say NEVER AGAIN. Never again is NOW.

And a reminder to non-Jews who might try to steal this phrase:

Never Again is a Jewish phrase. Period. It doesn’t belong to non-Jews.

Never Again refers to the Shoah, and to the THOUSANDS of years of violent Jew-hatred we have endured before then.

Never Again states that we Jews will NEVER AGAIN be slaughtered by the millions.

If you are a goy, and you use this phrase for any other purpose, you are engaging in cultural appropriation.

You are appropriating Jewish trauma and pain that IS NOT YOURS.

Unless you are willing to shoulder the burden of 3500+ years of Jewish history, you do NOT get to use this phrase.

If you steal Never Again for any other context, all you are doing is broadcasting that you are a Jew-hating bigot who engages in Holocaust Inversion.

And you can take your antisemitic bigotry and go fuck off into the sun.

.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borei p’ri hagafen.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’ratza vanu, v’shabbat kod’sho b’ahava uv’ratzon hinchilanu, zikaron l’ma’aseh b’reishit. Ki hu yom t’chila l’mikra-ay kodesh, zaycher l’tziat mitzrayim. Ki vanu vacharta v’otanu kidashta mikol ha’amim. V’shabbat kod-shi-cha b’ahava uv’ratzon hinchal tanu. Baruch ata Adonai, mi’kadesh ha Shabbat.

(Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, how has sanctified us with his commandments and favored us, and given us in love and favor his holy Shabbat as an inheritance, as a remembrance of the act of creation. For this day is the beginning of all holy days, a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. For you have chosen us and you have blessed us from among all the nations. And you have bequeathed us your holy Shabbat in love and favor. Blessed are you, Lord, who sanctifies Shabbat.)

.

Feel this, to all those races, colors, and creeds, every man bleeds

For the countless victims and all the families of the murdered, tortured, enslaved

Raped, robbed and persecuted — Never Again

To the men, women, and children who died in their struggle to live

Never to be forgotten, Reuven Ben Menachem, yo…

.

My own blood dragged through the mud

Perished in my heart, still cherished and loved

Stripped of our pride, everything we lived for

Families cried, there's nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide

Tossed to the side, access denied

6 million died, for what?

.

Yo, a man shot dead in his back

Helpless women and children under constant attack

For no reason 'til the next season and we still bleeding

Yo it's freezing and men burn in Hell, some for squeezing

No hope for a remedy, nothing to believe

Moving targets who walk with the star on their sleeve

Forever marked with a number tattooed to your body

Late night, eyes closed, clutched to my shotty

Having visions, flashes of death camps and prisons

No provisions, deceived by the Devil's decisions

Forced into a slave, death before dishonor

For those men who were brave, shot and sent to their grave

Can't awaken, it's too late, everything's been taken

I'm shaken, family, history in the making

.

Never again shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again shall we sit and take orders

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d then burned of our bones

Never again, never again, shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again leave our sons and daughters

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

(Never again) Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d and everything we own (Never again)

.

Some fled through the rumors of wars

But most left for dead, few escaped to the shores

With just one loaf of bread, banished

Called in for questioning and vanished, never to be seen again

I can't express the pain, that was felt in the train

To Auschwitz, tears poured down like rain

Naked, face to face with the master race

Hatred, blood, and David, my heart belongs to God and stays sacred

Rabbis and priests, disabled individuals

The poor, the scholars — all labeled common criminals

Mass extermination, total annihilation

Shipped into the ghetto and prepared for liquidation

Tortured and starved, innocent experiments

Stripped down and carved up or gassed to death

The last hour, I smelled the flowers

Flashbacks of family then sent to the showers

Powerless, undressed, women with babies clumped tight to their chest — crying

Who would've guessed — dying

Another life lost, count the cost

Another body gas-burned and tossed in the Holocaust

.

Never again shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again leave our sons and daughters

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d and everything we own

Never again, never again, shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again shall we sit and take orders

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

(Never again) Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d then burned of our bones (Never again)

.

Never Again. Never Again.

.

From the USA to Afghanistan

From Israel to Pakistan

From Iraq to Iran

To Russia, Poland, and France

From China over to Japan

Worldwide

Never Again

.

Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad

(“Hear O Yisrael, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One.” The Shema is the most important prayer in Judaism. It is the declaration of our faith in one G-d. Jews say the Shema prayer every day, in the morning and evening. And we also say the Shema before we die.)

FIRE!

*GUNSHOT*

[historicity-was-already-taken]

What I'm actually furious about, isn't just the anti-Semitism I've dealt with here.

What I'm furious at is the Israeli government and military. I am furious that they have the nerve to perpetrate war crimes while appropriating the memory of the 6 million. It makes me sick. It feels me with rage. It fills me with feelings of betrayal (those are complex and require deconstruction, discussed briefly below). How dare they massacre children, civilians, and fucking hospital patients; and how dare they do so while using the 6 million as a rhetorical shield?

The edgelord who left me a snide remark comparing the situation in Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto wasn't the first person to make that comparison to me. It was actually the Palestinian woman who translated two major sources from Hebrew into English for me.

She was translating a biography of Tossia Altman when her three nephews and sister-in-law were murdered during the IDF action in Gaza. I asked her if she wanted to stop working on the project (with no impact on her fee for the project, of course; that's where about $4000 of the money y'all helped me raise went, fyi). The brand of Zionism practiced by Tossia and her comrades is very very different from the version embodied in Netanyahu, and it was those schools of Zionism which mostly died in the Holocaust (I said), but I would completely understand if the material was too triggering for her.

She said "I’m not sure about this triggering me, I think holocaust survivors and Gazans are on the same boat to tell you the truth. It could be an opportunity for me to actually fathom the full picture, in a way." And I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

I'm not going to post the rest of our conversation here, for what I hope are obvious reasons. And for concerned parties, this woman has been living away from Gaza for a very long time.

But this is why I'm so angry and emotional.

And I'm over here having these, frankly, very painful, personal feelings (if my posts over the last 4 months haven't made it clear, I spent my teen years in an extremely manipulative right wing Israel "education" program, and was raised surrounded by first and secondhand Holocaust trauma which inevitably impacted how my elders educated me about The Conflict none of which I was fully able to deconstruct until I became a Holocaust Historian in grad school). Especially with my knowledge of how SHITTILY Holocaust survivors were treated when they got to Palestine in the mid-1940s; of how fucking disgracefully Yad Vashem treated Rachel Auerbach and Yitzhak Zuckerman. Of the way the Jewish fighters actually died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I became a Holocaust historian because I am the great/granddaughter of survivors and I do this work because it's a fucking calling, not something that brings me joy. And the goddamn Israeli government, the government of a nation which likes to say it exists for all Jews (when it barely even represents the Jews who live there but that's a different conversation); the way that government manipulates and misuses that history to excuse their actions in Gaza make me fucking sick. And, as demonstrated by some of you actual fucking pieces of shit, puts Diasporic Jews in danger. (side thought: Does Netanyahu WANT to put Diasporic Jews in danger?? He knows how this fucking shit works, and I wouldn't be surprised if he WANTED Jews to feel deeply unsafe and respond to that by fleeing to Israel).

And WHILE I'm experiencing all of this and trying to keep it all together while writing the what may be the most important thing I've ever written in my career, you fucking [word I don't use out loud or in writing] come in here and to throw your anti-Semitic bullshit at me when I ask you to please not spew it at me via my (year old) fucking Holocaust Remembrance Day posts, and when I ask you to be fucking mindful of it in your political speech.

So let me make it fucking clear, as far as I am concerned there are 4 separate conversations at play rn.

1) October 7 was horrific, genocidal, and traumatizing for Jews on a global basis.

2) Israel is committing heinous war crimes in Gaza right now which, if its own military's statements are anything to go by, are actively genocidal.

3) You shouldn’t harass random Jewish people because you’re disgusted with Israeli governmental and military decisions and actions.

4) The Israeli government’s appropriation of Holocaust memory within its larger state building project doesn’t give you [collective: non-Jews] the right to abuse Jews for discussing and generally having feelings about the Holocaust.

And FRANKLY I think all those conversations are accurate and valid. I also don't think I'm obligated to tear my heart open give you all my intimate feelings because a bunch of pieces of shit on this site can't grasp points 3 and 4.

So fuck that right wing program I belonged to as a teen, fuck you fucking left wing anti-Semites who can's grasp that you're touting the ideologies of people who would have wanted you dead, and fuck the Israeli government for committing war crimes. fuck them for their ongoing abuse of palestinian civil and human rights, and fuck them for invoking the memory of the 6million while doing it.

I've fucking had it with that fucking State, I've had it with you goddamn Jew-haters, and I've had it with the Jewish ppl who might want to destroy my career upon seeing this post.

I am mad as HELL.

I'm not even saying my mental health break is over. I've just had a moment of clarity, my period is over, and I'm pissed as hell. i'm tired of policing myself to make the gentiles who hate me comfortable; and I'm tired of policing myself to make my coreligionists who'd destroy me for having these thoughts comfortable. and there are 122,000 if you, so i don't care if you're so fucking fragile that this post makes you hit the unfollow button.

tl;dr:

[probablyasocialecologist]

The concept of the new antisemitism was popularized in The New Anti-Semitism, which was published by the Anti-Defamation League in 1974, was given some modest intellectual heft by the Orientalist Bernard Lewis in his 1986 book Semites and Anti-Semites, and has since been mainstreamed in some “working definitions” of antisemitism, from that deployed by the European Union Military Committee to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s highly controversial definition. The thrust of the new antisemitism thesis is that Israeli military aggression was really self-defense and that solidarity toward Palestinians was really antisemitism. Thus the French essayist Alain Finkielkraut could describe 2002, when many people protested against Israel’s ravaging of the West Bank during Operation Defensive Shield, as a “Kristallyear”; four years later, Lewis compared the atmosphere resulting from Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 to that of 1938. Those statements are functionally antisemitic. Most definitions of antisemitism, “working” or otherwise, agree that it is antisemitic to fail to distinguish between the state of Israel and Jews. It follows as surely as night follows day, that it is antisemitic to fail to distinguish between opposition to the state of Israel on internationalist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist grounds and hostility to the Jews as such. But Israel apologia depends precisely on obliterating the distinction between itself and Jews. Israel must represent itself, no matter how many Jewish people reject its embrace or protest against it, as “the state of the Jews,” the “Jew of nations,” the national self-defense of a people who could only exist elsewhere as a “foreign” element. That is what conservative politicians around the world are doing when they criminalize Palestine solidarity on the spurious basis of opposing antisemitism; that is what Britiain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is doing when he talks as if all Jews support Israel; that is what authorities in Berlin and France are doing when they ban Palestine protests. They may not be desecrating cemeteries or synagogues, but their logic is the same as that of some of those who do.

[holocaustremembranceday]

Remarks by the USG for Global Communications at the Holocaust  Memorial Ceremony 2024.

Opening remarks by Melissa Fleming, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, at the United Nations Memorial Ceremony marking the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust 2024.

[mooncurses]

To add to the current trend of calling out the bullshit that Zionists spout, here's a collection of not so fun facts for my friends outside of Italy.

Some of you may have heard of how Ghali, one of the most famous singers in Italy who is of Tunisian descent, has been criticized by Israel's Ambassador to Italy Alon Bar, who accused him of spreading hate just because he called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Then to remind us all of how much of a grip on the balls of our entire nation Isr*el has, a letter recounting the October 7 happenings was read on air to "balance" things out politically speaking (as our useless Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister stated, whatever the fuck that means). On his part Ghali responded with confusion and honesty, simply saying that as an artist he's always going to use his platform to talk about what he thinks is important, besides the fact that he's always been supportive of the Palestinian people since he was a kid (thus reiterating how their struggle has NOT started on October 7). In no part he ever invoked anything but peace, and yet he sparked controversy.

Of course what this episode merely sheds light on is the shameful and blatant climate of selfcensorship that has taken over the Italian mainstream media. It's not even an isolated accident: just days prior another contestant of the Sanremo festival, Dargen D'Amico, was attacked by the mainstream press after he dared take a minute after his exhibition to remind everyone that with our silence we are all complicit in the deaths of countless children right now. Sure enough he was forced to apologize "for getting political" the very day after.

To protest this cowardly and disgusting attitude that has become the standard in Italy, a peaceful sit-in was organized today in Naples in front of RAI (the public TV network that broadcast the Sanremo festival and that is funded with tax payers' money). After the protestants tried to hang a pro-Palestine banner on the fence of the building, police brutality quickly ensued and several people got hurt after being hit in the head with batons (you can find a video of the whole scene unfolding here).

So the thing here is that you can see how the top brass of our government desperately wants us all to just be complacent in the killing of Palestinians at hands of Isr*el. Much like what happened with the bombing of Rafah carefully made to overlap with the Super Bowl, the pro Isr*el Western governements very much hope that our silence can be bought with as little as good old panem et circaenses. And I've gotta say, at least in the case of Italy, it's almost like in doing so they forget how we young people were taught about genocide in the first place.

They drilled an acute awareness of what genocide looks like into each of our heads throughout our whole grade school life. We would hold our yearly minute of silence for the victims of the Holocaust on Remembrance Day without fail, we would read "Se Questo È Un Uomo" by Primo Levi as early as eight grade and analyze it thoroughly. We would study Hannah Arendt's philosophy while focusing especially on her ideas about the banality of evil that she witnessed during the Nuremberg Trials. Most high schools organized mandatory conferences with Holocaust survivors as speakers and visits at the local synagogue, as well as extra curricular activities (I'm talking weeks long train trips to Dachau and other concentration camps while accompanied by members of survivors associations and historians) to further spread awareness about the horror of the Holocaust and make sure that we would never let it happen again, that we would take a strong stance against it if the situation ever called for it.

And now we are living through the first genocide that's being documented live for the whole world to see and yet apparently nobody can say nothing about it. The countries that so far have taken a strong stance against Isr*el are so few it's absurd considering the enormous amount of damning evidence of war crimes, human trafficking, and ultimately ethnic cleansing that Isr*el is carrying out. It's even more absurd if you think of how casual the Isr*elis are about all of this, perfectly knowing that as long as they are backed by the world's largest powers they are basically untouchable. The banality of evil for real.

But here's the thing. Isr*el is just a country run by the military and made up of brainwashed ultranationalist colonialists, who think it is their birth right to kill every last Palestinian and mock their suffering because that's what they've been told confidently their whole lives. They think that the suffering their people lived in the past made them beyond moral reproach today, that their right to self-defense can spill over to offense and nobody will ever blame them, and they are so convinced of this that they will respond to actual accusations of genocide and war crimes simply by saying "that's antisemitic" and moving on.

Even just recalling the words of Holocaust survivors who spoke up about genocide has stopped clicking in the heads of many people because they see everything pertaining to the Jews as exceptional in its political, social, and historical dimensions, even when it's not. To better explain what I mean let me summarize another fun fact from very recent happenings in Italy. This last January 27, on Remembrance Day, several protests by young people of Palestinian descent and other supporters were held in various cities to condemn Isr*el's actions in Palestine, despite having been forbidden for "security reasons" after some complaints of the Jewish community called for the protest to be rescheduled. Some of the words that were written on the banners that the protestors held are quotes of Primo Levi, a writer and Holocaust survivor who passed in 1987. The aftermath of the protests was basically centered around Noemi Di Segni, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), who said that the remembrance of Levi's words should be left to Jews, and then called for an end to the "verbal violence" against Jews that pro Palestine stances imply.

"Cease the fire of words against us is what we say to those who continue to accuse Israel of war crimes and genocide, with slogans based on nationality and faith, giving credence only to Hamas propaganda and giving new life to prejudices that we had hoped were extinct," Di Segni said. She also said that this kind of "Islamic suprematism" should look for quotes elsewhere, basically.

The funny thing here, however, is that the words that Levi originally spoke and that Di Segni and many other Zionists say have been "appropriated" by Palestinians were words that were never meant to be exclusively related to the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews specifically. All the contrary, they invite caution especially by reiterating that everyone needs to retain awareness of the horrors of genocide, because anyone (even Jews themselves in theory) could let such unspeakable things happen again if they let themselves forget. These are the words:

"Se comprendere è impossibile conoscere è necessario, perché ciò che è accaduto può ritornare, le coscienze possono nuovamente essere sedotte ed oscurate: anche le nostre". (trans: "If understanding is impossible then knowing is necessary, because what happened can come back, the consciences can again be seduced and obscured: even ours.")

This is important because to imply as Di Segni did that the Holocaust is a self contained episode in history, that words of warning against genocide in general can only be used in the context of a particular genocide that happened over 75 years ago, is the exact opposite of what survivors like Levi wanted the world to think.

The title Levi gave to what his English-language publishers called “Survival in Auschwitz” was “Se Questo È un Uomo” (“If This Is a Man”). The Nazis’ crime, he believed, was to treat the Jews as if they weren’t men—human beings. But the Jews’ suffering, he said, did not make them better people, or give them special rights. They had to observe the same moral standards as anyone else. Levi abhorred what we now call “exceptionalism.” This affected his views on Israel. He repeatedly condemned the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinians. When, in 1982, the Israelis stood by as the Christian Phalangists massacred the Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila, he called for the resignation of Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin. “Everybody is somebody’s Jew,” he told a reporter, Filippo Gentiloni, from the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, and he cited the abuse of Poland by the Russians and the Germans. At that point in the interview, printed on June 29, 1982, Gentiloni closed the Levi quote and added a sentence of his own: “And today Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis.”

Anyways, keep calling things as you see them. It may piss off some people, but it's the only way things can actually start to change in such a mud pool of empty politics and performative activism such as what we're witnessing in most Western countries.

[rabbitcruiser]

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Observed annually on January 27th to remember the victims of the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime during World War II, International Holocaust Remembrance Day serves as a reminder to never forget the horrors of the past and to strive for a more just and peaceful world.

History of International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Holocaust was a genocide that took place during World War II in which millions of Jews, as well as other minority groups, were systematically tortured and killed by the Nazi regime in Europe. Beginning in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and implemented policies of racial purity and persecution of Jews and other minorities, the Holocaust reached its height in 1941 when the Nazis began the extermination of Jews in concentration camps across Europe, and ended in 1945 when Allied forces liberated the concentration camps and defeated the Nazi regime. The Holocaust is remembered as one of the darkest periods in human history, and it serves as a reminder of the dangers of hatred, discrimination, and violence.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by the United Nations in 2005 to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945. The day is held annually on January 27th to honor the victims of the Holocaust and to recognize the importance of remembering and learning from this tragic event. The day is observed around the world with ceremonies, events, and educational programs to honor the victims and to raise awareness about the dangers of hatred, discrimination, and violence.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day Timeline

January 30, 1933 Hitler becomes chancellor

Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany, setting the stage for the implementation of policies of racial purity and persecution of Jews and other minority groups.

September, 1939 Invasion of Poland

Nazi forces invade Poland, beginning World War II and leading to the occupation and persecution of Jews in Poland.

June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa

Nazi forces launch Operation Barbarossa, invading the Soviet Union and leading to the mass murder of Jews in the occupied territories.

January 27, 1945 Liberation of Auschwitz

Soviet forces liberate the Auschwitz concentration camp, revealing the horrific conditions and mass murder of Jews and other prisoners.

November 1, 2005 International Holocaust Remembrance Day is founded

Following the 60th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 establishes January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

How to Observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day

There are many ways to observe this day and to pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. Here are three suggestions for how you can observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day:

Attend a Local Ceremony or Event

Many communities hold ceremonies or events to remember the victims of the Holocaust on this day. You can attend one of these events to pay your respects and to learn more about the history of the Holocaust.

Educate Yourself and Others

The Holocaust is a complex and tragic event that is important to understand and remember. You can educate yourself and others by reading books, watching documentaries, and visiting Holocaust museums. This can help you to learn more about what happened and to understand the importance of remembering and preventing such atrocities from happening again.

Take Action to Combat Hatred and Discrimination

The Holocaust was the result of hatred and discrimination that led to the persecution and murder of millions of people. You can take action to combat these issues in your own community by speaking out against hate, and volunteering with organizations that work to promote tolerance and understanding.

Reflect and Remember

Finally, you can observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day by simply taking a moment to reflect on the tragedy of the Holocaust and to remember the victims. You can do this by lighting a candle, saying a prayer, or simply by taking a moment to think about the impact of the Holocaust on the world.

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Auschwitz Liberation Day

Auschwitz Liberation Day, observed on January 27, is a day that sums up the history of the Holocaust — to commemorate the Jews that were killed and abused. A genocide of these victims by Nazi Germany occurred between 1941 and 1945. So much history, so many stories, and propaganda came about from these critical years. It’s been more than half a century and we are urged not to forget. This day reminds every one of us that nothing good came about from the Holocaust, a true event in history, that only condemned and killed six million Jews.

History of Auschwitz Liberation Day

Auschwitz, also called Auschwitz-Birkenau, was the Nazis’ biggest and most known concentration and extermination camp. Auschwitz was known to be the “final solution” because of its devastating ways of abuse and murder, especially of Jews. Located in the southern part of Poland, known as Oswiecim, the largest Nazi camp consisted of three parts: a prison camp, a slave-labor camp, and an extermination camp. These camps involved gas chambers and cremation furnaces. Auschwitz’s doctors would perform medical experiments and inhumane procedures on some prisoners, using injections, radiation, and sterilization.

Germans decided to forgo the camp by the start of 1945. On January 17, 1945, 67,000 prisoners were prompted to attend a “death march.” Prisoners who were too weak to walk were killed on the spot. While this happened, the Germans were trying to remove and erase any semblance of the camp and the crimes they’ve committed. On January 27 of the same year, Soviet soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front entered Auschwitz, and thus a mere 7,000 prisoners were finally free of the wretchedness and affliction of the camp.

Upon investigation after this discovery, the Soviet Commission investigated all of the Holocaust’s history, especially Nazi acts, and crimes done in the campground. Today, it is known that 1.1 million people died in Auschwitz, mainly consisting of Jews. Aside from the anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation, January 27 is also appointed as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Auschwitz Liberation Day timeline

1945 Prisoners Free At Last

On January 27, the gates of Auschwitz open and the prisoners are finally free from the Holocaust and the Auschwitz camp.

1979 Memorial Engraved

The Auschwitz concentration camp is renamed  “Auschwitz-Birkenau” by the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

2020 Anniversary Pursues

This year celebrates and commemorates the 75th anniversary of all the victims of Auschwitz.

2021 Plans To Continue

Together, the United Nations and UNESCO organizes a set of events to mark the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German concentration camp, Auschwitz.

Auschwitz Liberation Day FAQs

What happens on Auschwitz Liberation Day?

This day is a day to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust but also rejoice for those who were able to be free from Auschwitz.

Does Auschwitz still stand today?

It is considered a Unesco World Heritage Site, maintained by the Polish government as a museum and memorial.

Who liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945?

The Soviet Army was the one that entered Auschwitz and freed around 7,000 inmates.

How to Observe Auschwitz Liberation Day

Do your research

Share the rich history

Practice the teachings

Before understanding what this day means for so much of mankind, it is important to delve into history. Investigate and learn more about the Holocaust to truly make sense of this day. Many books and films are made to capture the essence of this event.

All Holocaust survivors are at an old age, and half of these witnesses have passed away so don’t let the details die. It’s crucial that history is not forgotten and the stories of all these Jews be told to the world so this will never happen again. Take to your social media accounts and share the rich history with fellow friends and family.

This event speaks of the role of power and its victims when it comes to the Nazi Germans and German Jews. This may have happened more than half a century ago but it does not mean we forget what it teaches us about human morals and values. If you know any survivors get into contact with them, or if they’ve passed on, look them up to get more information on their struggles and how they fought to become strong and remembered individuals.

5 Interesting Facts About Auschwitz

Not only Jews were victims

Each prisoner was given a number

There were many camps inside Auschwitz

The use of Auschwitz began in 1940

Belongings of those killed were left

Aside from Jews, around 150,000 Polish and 22,000 Romani were killed as well.

Each prisoner sent to this camp had a specific individual number for counting purposes.

There was a rough estimate of 44 sub-camps within Auschwitz-Birkenau, being by far the largest concentration and extermination camp.

The first prisoner of the camp arrived on June 14, 1940.

There is a room full of shoes from 80,000 victims.

Why Auschwitz Liberation Day is Important

We learn about history

Human beings were able to reach freedom again

It reminds us of the need to take action

We learn about the history of World War II, specifically in the context of Germany. We discover the hard facts and truth that came about during the 1940s and onwards.

Auschwitz contained innocent people who were killed. It’s so important to commemorate and remember that those liberated were able to live freely after a time of cruelty and condemnation.

Every day, we face instances of injustices, crime, racism, and hate. By learning and hearing about the stories of the people who went through this inhumane time, we can empathize and be certain that nothing like this should ever happen again, may it be to a group, race, or even one person.

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[eretzyisrael]

Today is Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day. This week’s very special Thursday Hero was submitted by Edward Baral, a member of our Accidental Talmudist community.

Here is his story:

"In 1943, my grandmother Franka Baral escaped from Plazow concentration camp near Krakow, Poland. She made her way overland to Budapest with my father (aged 8), his brother and sister and three young cousins.

"In Budapest, they lived hand to mouth and were quickly running out of options. My father stood alone on a street corner and began to cry. A Hungarian woman named Ilona Nemes asked him what was wrong and he bawled (at considerable risk but he was just a kid) that he was hungry and homeless.

"Ilona took all seven desperate Jews to her apartment and hid them. As life in Budapest became more dangerous, Ilona transported the Jews in small groups to her parents’ farm near Nhiregyhaza. She passed them off as Catholic refugees from Poland (they did not speak any Hungarian).

"Franka and the six young children lived in relative safety until the Russians came a year later.

"Ten years ago, I found some letters between my grandmother and Ilona from 1965-66 but there appeared to be no later contact. After a decade of searching, I finally found Ilona’s granddaughter still living in Budapest last year.

"Ilona’s granddaughter and her family speak no English, but thanks to Google translate, Facebook, and the help of another caring Hungarian woman named Ilona, we were able to connect. When they sent me a photo of Ilona Nemes on the farm with my family in 1944, I got goosebumps.

"We arranged for Ilona’s granddaughter to receive her grandmother’s Righteous Among the Nations award [given by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews.]

"We believe that Ilona saved other Jews as well, but the full story of her incredible bravery may never be known.”

For her huge heart and tremendous courage in saving seven Jews - including six children - we honor Ilona Nemes as this week’s Thursday Hero.

Thank you to Edward Baral for introducing us to this remarkable woman.

Source: facebook.com