Holocaust Remembrance Day and Durban II

April 20, 2009 - 9:58 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Politics 

holocaustHolocaust Remembrance Day, which begins Monday evening here, is always a solemn occasion. But this year, with the ghoulishly ironic juxtaposition of the Durban II racism conference taking place in Geneva, there’s an added measure of stark sobriety.

Even as Israelis pause to ponder the memory of the six million Jews who perished during the Nazi regime from 1933-1945, the gathering in Geneva demonstrates that there are still people who would like Israel – and by association – Jews to cease to exist.

So while Iran, Libya and the other latter day plotters gather for their bash-Israel fest, we’ll be remembering. The theme of the annual state ceremony, beginning at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial is ‘Children in the Holocaust.’ Some 1.5 million Jewish children were killed by the Nazis. As part of the theme, a 16-year-old musician will play a violin that belonged to a 12-year-old partisan, Mordechai (Motele) Schlein, killed in the Holocaust and whose violin is on display at Yad Vashem. The museum is also launching a new exhibition and material about children killed in the Holocaust – accessible on Yad Vashem’s Web site

According to a Hebrew University demographer – Professor Sergio Della Pergola – if not for the Holocaust there would be as many as 32 million Jews in the world today, instead of the current 13 million. Before the outbreak of World War II, there were an estimated 16.5 million Jews in the world.

Just imagine how the world might have been different if all the scientists, doctors, musicians and every other Jew who perished had gone on to live their full lives. We’ll never know what their impact would have been, but by refuting and condemning the lies which are going to come out of Durban II, we’ll be helping to insure that such wanton human destruction doesn’t take place again.

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