I have a confession to make.
I don’t like the holocaust.
I don’t like thinking about, reading about, or talking about the holocaust. I don’t like hearing disturbing jokes about the difference between Santa and the Jews. I don’t like confronting the horrors in our past. I admit it. I don’t like learning about the holocaust.
Mostly I find that anyone today who is teaching holocaust studies is aiming to terrify the student and impress upon them the level of horror which occurred in Nazi Germany in World War 2. People don’t like giving out dry facts; they have to be biased, painful and frightening.
But really, I have had my share of horror in holocaust studies. I’ve heard enough to be convinced that I’ll do everything I can to make sure it won’t happen again. I have holocaust related nightmares from time to time. I’m done with being scared. Seriously. I know what happened, OK?
Although I don’t rule out our responsibility as people to educate ourselves and the next generation. I often ask myself, how can I learn about the holocaust in a way that makes sense to me? How can I teach the holocaust without hurting myself too much?
I was recently having a conversation with the a friend of mine whose mother-in-law was rescued during World War 2 by a Non-Jewish man in France. As I understand, this man, at an enormous risk to his life, arranged for many Jewish children to be hidden in the homes of French residents during the Nazi invasion. Many. Not one Jewish child, many. To him, saving the lives of these children was as natural as saving his own. He did not see them as Jews – he saw them as nothing but people. People who deserved to live, simply because they were people.
This, according to Nomi, is the message we should take from the holocaust. We, all around the world, should learn to emulate this man’s behavior, or at the very least his philosophy. PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE no matter what shape, size, or color, and they do not deserve to be starved and slaughtered and godknowswhat else the Nazis did to the Jews back then. We must learn to see humans as humans. We must learn to recognize that, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if someone looks, sounds, eats, drinks, talks, walks, drives, shaves, or thinks different from you. People are people.
And this is where I feel I fit into holocaust education. Instead of focusing on the horrors that were done to us and the torture we went through, we can educate ourselves by counteracting what the Nazis thought of us – as sub humans – and treating all people equally. Instead of focusing on the wounds of the past, we can look into the future and change the way we see ourselves and everyone in order to ensure that this will never ever happen again. And I mean this, guys. I really mean it. When I say people, I mean everyone – even if they’re not Jews. Tall, short, male, female, pretty, ugly, thin, fat, black, white, brown, beige, yellow, purple, Jewish, Christian, Muslim(forget it, I’m not naming all the religions here, you get the point), American presidents, celebrities, royal, smart, stupid, rich, poor, believers and non believers alike.
If we can learn to see people as people, we will never be in danger of treating them as less.
Liora Sophie 