Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday April 5, 2002

Yom HaShoah reminds us we must keep stories alive

Mark Schickman

Fifty years ago, eyewitnesses to the Holocaust flocked to America, hundreds of thousands, with unspeakable tales of horror. My parents entered through Ellis Island, and they took the New York-Florida path to the Jewish American dream. Neither would discuss their experiences, my mother growing misty and my father turning silent whenever the topic arose. I was 22 before I was told that I lost a sister in the war. As is the case with many survivors, most of their stories will never be told.

If most survivors were reluctant to talk, the community was even less inclined to listen. Both here and in Israel, survivors' stories and problems were largely ignored; the image of Jews as victims just didn't resonate. There were so many eyewitnesses to so many atrocities that we appreciated neither their power nor worth.

We didn't then know that a school of "Holocaust denial" would arise, with well-credentialed scholars, fronting prestigiously titled institutes, professing that Holocaust histories were exaggerations and fabrications. We couldn't imagine that by 1993, 22 percent of adult Americans questioned whether the Holocaust occurred -- a number that jumped to 45 percent among non-high school graduates.

In a response to local neo-Nazism 25 years ago, San Francisco survivors formed America's first local Holocaust center. More than 20 other communities have since followed suit, and the nation's capital is now home to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. And Yom HaShoah, the Day of Remembrance that falls on Tuesday this year, is now marked with ceremonies throughout the world.

Our own Holocaust Center of Northern California mobilized hundreds of survivors who collected original source materials, traveled to schools, met with teachers and worked with students in the center's extensive library and collection -- reaching several hundred thousand students over the past two decades.

The testimonials we receive show that the people touched by those survivors doubt neither the existence nor lessons of the Holocaust. Minority teachers and students form the deepest bonds with survivor speakers; they best understand the racism, profiling, humiliation and scapegoating that were at the heart of the Holocaust.

But we have wasted our unique eyewitness resources, and they are disappearing. Our speakers' panel has dwindled from hundreds to 30 -- not nearly enough to fill the requests we receive. The task of rebutting modern Holocaust deniers, who ride the Internet into every home, is daunting with eyewitness testimony; without eyewitnesses, how will we accomplish it? Children of survivors have entered the breach, testifying to their parents' lives, stories and accomplishments; but, lacking the authenticity of Hitler's victims, they are only a partial solution

Testifying to this history is an obligation to the memories of the Shoah's victims and a service to a modern world, which needs its lessons more than ever. In the past year, Daniel Pearl was murdered for being a Jew; the Taliban ordered religious minorities to wear yellow armbands; an Arabic translation of "Mein Kampf" became a best seller in the Middle East; and New York City was attacked in a barbaric effort to destroy Godless infidels. This is no time to forget the lessons of the Holocaust.

Most important, it's the Jewish destiny to be "a nation of witnesses." The Hebrew word given the community of Jews that left Egypt was edah -- a collective witness. The Exodus itself (the world's first media event, more than 400 years in the planning) was preordained solely so that the Passover seder could re-enact it forever, as we pretend to eyewitness oppression and freedom, year after year. Before the Exodus ever occurred, we were already commanded to commemorate it eternally. Our role as ringside witnesses to oppression and freedom, and the sensitivity that it brings, are the existential fate and the gift of the Jews.

But, while 86 percent of American Jewish families commemorate our 3,000-year-old liberation from Egyptian slavery, a relative handful observe our 20th century liberation from Nazi destruction. If we don't interpret this unfathomable historical chapter, our oppressors will attach their "spin." We haven't yet created any modern-day seder or Megillah to eternalize this memory for future generations. If survivors are important to that effort, we are running out of time.

A biblical verse, repeated in both Joshua and Judges, notes that the nation followed God's path only as long as there were living eyewitnesses to Egyptian bondage and liberation. The Bible understood the power of eyewitness testimony, and the concomitant tendency to forget the lessons of history. As we approach this Yom HaShoah on Tuesday, a critical task for our own Holocaust Center, and for 21st century Jewry, is to develop a substitute for eyewitness testimony, so that the culture and fate of Europe's Jews do not devolve into myth. How will we effectively perpetuate the history of the Shoah when the eyewitnesses are gone?

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.