On remembering the Holocaust

It is 8:30pm on Monday, January 27th and I am sitting in an airport thinking about the Holocaust. As I scroll through my Instagram feed waiting for my plane to board I am seeing post after post, video after video, of remembrances of the Holocaust from around the globe. Because today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz.

All of the memorials, testimonies, and public ceremonies are so affecting. The personal stories still rock me to my core. But nothing impacted me more than the video of survivors returning to Auschwitz to lay down their candles and lift up their painful histories, returning to the very scene of their unimaginable trauma. The survivors are our elders, they are increasingly frail, and they are dwindling in number. Soon, there will be no one left who personally experienced the horrors of the Holocaust. Soon, their stories will have to live on through the rest of us, because they will no longer be able to tell them. We will have to bear witness without the presence of those who carry the trauma in their souls. We will have to do right by them.

I’ve long worried about what will happen when there is no one left to tell the story, and now I worry about more than ever before.

We exist in a world where data and facts no longer sway public opinion, at least not enough to impact the outcome of a presidential election. I have many colleagues who believe that if we just present enough data, or present the data in a more compelling way, we will bring people along. A viewpoint I respect, however I fear that is increasingly not the case. But I do think there continues to be power in storytelling, particularly the stories that emerge from memory. It is why I am so distressed at the suppression of stories that has become a focal point of extremist politicians. From book banning to erasing history that makes people (white people) feel uncomfortable, even the telling of stories and the sharing of history has become weaponized. Holocaust revisionism has long reared its ugly head. What will happen when those storytellers are no longer with us?

I grew up around Holocaust survivors, people sent to concentration camps and others sent away by their parents to escape, never to see their families again. I saw the tattoos on their forearms and heard the stories of what it was like for them to be raised by strangers who became family when their own families never came to get them. As a child I struggled with what felt like an unanswerable question — how did people let this happen? How could so many people turn a blind eye to, or even actively participate in, the annihilation of entire communities? I was taught to celebrate the “righteous gentiles”, the people who risked their own safety to protect Jews. But why weren’t there more of them? How could so many people see what was happening and not intervene? Like most children do, I also personalized the question. If Nazis came for me and my family, would someone try to save us? Or would people watch as we were forcibly removed from our homes and sent to almost certain death?

The fact that I had to wonder this really bothered me. My heart couldn’t easily tolerate that there were people around me that wouldn’t step in if my life was in danger. That would choose to let my family meet a horrific fate.

Now, of course, as an adult I understand this very differently. Well I should say my head understands it even if my heart does not. But the question continues to bother me, particularly now as we see the ever increasing numbers of people willing to believe lies about immigrants, trans people, and others targeted by the current administration. There are too many people who are turning a blind eye to violent rhetoric and hateful policies, if not actively encouraging them. While I continue to struggle with the question, the discomfort it gives me also informs how I approach the world. It guides who I am. Because I never want to be the person who turns away. My challenge is to be someone who turns towards, who speaks up, who does not let silence provide cover for violence.

It is now 10:00pm on Monday, January 27th and I am in the air flying from DC back to Boston. It is Holocaust Remembrance Day and I have spent the day hearing about ICE raids and immigrants living in fear. I have read articles about schools training teachers on what to do if ICE comes to the door and parents making temporary guardianship plans in case they are deported and separated from their children. About Boston being targeted as a sanctuary city with the mayor — the child of immigrants herself — being “invited” to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee. It is Holocaust Remembrance Day and I wonder what the survivors who traveled to Auschwitz today must think of what is unfolding here in the country that was supposed to offer safety in the aftermath of their trauma.

I am remembering the Holocaust and I am thinking of tomorrow. I am still holding the questions of my childhood along with the realization of how widespread horror can happen in broad daylight under willfully averted eyes. I have spent today bearing witness, which is unto itself a profound act of justice. But it cannot end at witnessing. There were too many people who witnessed, but didn’t act. Today remembrance and tomorrow action.

Future generations should never wonder why more people didn’t act to stop the hate that has been enabled and encouraged by the current administration. They should not wonder, because we should make sure they do not have to.

It is 10:30pm and I am about to land in Boston. I am still remembering, but I am also thinking about what action I will be taking tomorrow. And for many tomorrows after that. I will speak up when hateful lies are told. When one immigrant’s misdeeds are used to assign criminality to all immigrants. I will push back on the lies of widespread immigrant crime being a threat to our public safety while the same politicians celebrate the release of insurrectionists. I will support the work of local activists working with immigrant communities. And I will reach out a build more relationships with immigrants and trans folks and everyone whose safety is jeopardized by the hateful actions of this administration.

I will do so because my ancestors demand it of me. Remembrance isn’t passive.