Zachor
Eighty years ago, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up.
They realised that no one was going to do it for them. Stripped of their possessions, separated from their loved ones and deprived of their dignity and humanity, they made a bold, if ultimately futile, stance against what was happening to them and to the Jews of Europe.
This week, in which we marked Yom Hashoah, we remember their bravery.
The international community has its own day to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. It is an admirable event in which many of us take part in January each year.
But Yom Hashoah is different.
It is our day. It is the day when we embrace each other and mourn as a people. It is when we remember, like those brave souls in the Warsaw Ghetto, that meaningful action is up to us. It is when we recommit to “zachor” – remember – to assure our future by not forgetting our past.
We remember the six million Jews who perished in this darkest chapter of human history, including one-and-a-half million children, so that they may in some way live on.
We remember the horrific deeds they endured for no other reason than because they were Jewish, so that such evil may never be allowed to show its face again.
And we remember the heroes, the Righteous Among the Nations, who shone their light in this time of darkness, doing what was right despite the tremendous risks to save Jewish lives.
Hitler and the Nazis sought to erase the Jewish people from the globe.
But they did not succeed. We are here. Generations of Jews have been born since the Holocaust and are today thriving in defiance of their evil plan.
This week a delegation comprising thousands of Jews marched on the very ground of the Nazis’ attempted extermination of our people at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Next week they will congregate in our reborn homeland to celebrate its 75th birthday – marking the culmination of our victory against those who tried to destroy us.
But the very fact that Israel’s enemies want to see it destroyed too only reinforces the importance of remembering past evils to secure our people’s future.
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