Before I started researching my family history back in 2010, I believed that I had no relatives who were killed in the Holocaust. Since then I have learned that there are so many of my cousins who were killed by the Nazis that I have lost count—babies, children, teenagers, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandparents, the frail and the elderly—innocent people who were put to death for no reason other than their Jewish identity.
Here we are 80 years after the Holocaust and we are still seeing people being despised and targeted because of their identities. There is still widespread antisemitism, but also widespread racism and islamophobia. We seem to have learned nothing.
On Yom Hashoah let’s work for and hope for the end of all kinds of intolerance and hatred.
Brotmanblog: A Family Journey 
Amy, more than 20 years ago, when I started doing family research, I heard from our cousin Steven in New York that our great-uncle’s family had been murdered in the Shoah. However, that knowledge somehow did not touch me personally. It was like other information about the Shoah that I had read in books or seen in films. Disturbing — enraging — but not really personal.
The Shoah became personal through a very short take in one more film about the Shoah. Jews had been deported, homes had been vandalized and the camera panned broken windows and splintered doors. Suddenly — it seemed to me, at least — doorbells with the names of the now deported and soon to be murdered inhabitants filled the screen. And there was the name “Leon Blumenfeld.” There was MY name. I cried. The Shoah had happened to me. The house of memories suddenly had a doorbell on it with MY name.
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I know that feeling. I still gasp with each name I discover. I think for next Yom Hashoah I will compile a list of names. It never fails to shock me. Especially the children. When we visited Auschwitz in 2015, I wept at the display of baby clothing.
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I wish I knew why we humans always need someone to blame. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the snake. Jesus was killed and the church blamed the Jews. And then, at the Second Vatican Council, the Roman church officiall reversed that teaching. After that decision, the Mitchell Trio wrote a song about the Jews being absolved of Jesus’ death: “The Ecumenical March.” The song ends with the following line: Wait a minute! If we didn’t do it, who did? … The Puerto Ricans!
Yes, someone always had to be to blame and be made to pay for whatever it is that “they” did or are supposed to have done. “When will they ever learn!?”
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I do not know how we unteach hate. All we can do is try to love each other enough to somehow conquer the hate.
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Sadly and with hesitation to post, I am thinking it is the human condition and I don’t think it will ever end. I reward thru all the comments and am deeply touched and prayerfully hoping I am wrong.
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I fear you are right and hope you are wrong…
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I try not to despair, especially right now, but I also truly believe that more people want peace and tolerance than war and bigotry…hopefully the majority will prevail…and sooner rather than later.
Thank you for all you do to bring to light the atrocities of Hitler and his thugs…in naming your relatives, you ensure they’re never forgotten.
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Thank you, Teresa. They is my goal.
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Thank you so much for speaking the full truth – the anti-semitism, the Islamophobia, the racism, the hatred against LGBTQ+ people, the anti-whatever (there always seems to be someone!). To me, it is *all* wrong. I know of three distant cousins who were killed in the Shoah. I suspect I have more, but it is very hard to trace one branch of my family, and I have not been successful at it. It is hard to do, and when I come across any family history relating to the Shoah I become almost emotionally distraught and mentally foggy. May we somehow learn to love, care for, and support each other. We *all* need each other to survive, to thrive, to care for our planet that supports us all. Thank you, Amy, for bringing to light the full truth!
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Thanks, cousin. We are on the same page.
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While I am not religious, I do embrace various philosophies, including those that teach we are all parts of the One. It doesn’t make sense to hate anyone or anything. But there are so many ways that people try to set themselves apart as “better” or more approved of by god or whatever that they lose sight of this profound truth. What we do to others, we do to ourselves.
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So very true. I just wish more people realized that.
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Your final sentence says it all…If only more people considered that before acting.
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Fear breeds hate. We can hope for a more peaceful world as we go about our daily lives.
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I hope so, but right now it seems we are moving in the opposite direction.
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I so appreciated your balanced and touching expression of disappointment in people of the 21st Century. We have a dear, dear friend whose parents survived the Warsaw ghetto. He is very anxious and paranoid and believes all Muslims plot the demise of all Jews. We don’t know how to help him. Clearly his soul is troubled.
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How very sad. Unfortunately there is far too much hatred on both sides.
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