This past Friday, January 27th, people took some time to reflect back upon the Holocaust. Many posted about it on Facebook, and even wrote long messages about how they are refusing to let history repeat itself. I’ve seen countless posts that parallel the Holocaust to the “wall” that is being built, and I’ve seen posts that compare the president to the rise of Hitler. But alas, I am not here to talk politics. You are entitled to believe in whatever the hell you want to. But for me, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a little different than writing a passionate speech about it on Facebook.
Why, you may ask?
Well, it’s because I’m actually related to a Holocaust survivor. My grandma, who is no longer with us, was merely 13 years old when she went into the camps. And for me, this day means so much more than a post, or even an article such as this, can rightly justify.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day for me to reflect back on all of the hardships my grandma had to endure. From working on the airfield, to being raped by five men, to living off of rocks and coffee beans and becoming emaciated, to surviving the Death March; my grandmother went through things that no one in this generation can fully comprehend (including myself). She was the strongest person I knew, and I’ll never forget everything she went through. Heck, one day I plan to write an entire book about it.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day for me to think about the great-grandmother I never got the chance to meet or hear much about, because she was one of the hundreds of thousands of poor souls to be thrown into the gas chambers. Frightened, torn away from her children, stripped down, shoved into a room with dozens of other naked and scared women, and then gassed and burned until she was nothing but a puff of black smoke. I have a hard time putting into words the heaviness behind the fact that she was in the gas chambers. Today, people become emotional when they see pictures of how horrific it was, but you feel it on a different level when someone in your family was one of the many who actually suffered and died because of it.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day for me to honor the great-grandfather that died from such terrible circumstances that to this day I don’t know how he passed. I’ve only seen him in pictures, and there was a gentleness behind his eyes. I know how hard he was trying to secure a home for his family in America. Unfortunately, by the time he returned home to Czechoslovakia to get the ball rolling and move his family to safety, it was a little too late.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day for me to remember the millions of the innocent lives that were brutally lost, not those just directly related to me. There is this video that's going viral on Facebook right now (click here to view it), and it’s of people who visit the Berlin Holocaust Memorial and feel it’s appropriate to take selfies and “fun” pictures while they stand amongst the graves of thousands upon thousands of those who died in the Holocaust. To make a point, a man began taking those pictures and photoshopping them over actual Holocaust images, and he is calling his project the “Yolocaust.” As the granddaughter of a survivor and direct descendant of people who died in the Holocaust, I think it’s disgusting that people are actually going there and posing with these graves like it’s some sort of beautiful and humorous attraction. I give the man doing the photoshopping a bevy of credit. There is a time and place for everything, and under NO circumstances should this be a place for people to be taking comical and cute pictures. Think I’m being too prude about it and that I should lighten up? Then you can just click off of my article right now. My God, show some respect.
Lastly, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day for me to remember how incredibly blessed I am to even be alive right now. If it weren’t for my grandma surviving, then my dad wouldn’t be here, which in turn means I wouldn’t be here, either. My very existence stems from the fact that she survived the grueling years of labor, torture and abuse.
But do I limit myself to remembering these things only on Holocaust Remembrance Day?
No. I remember all of this every single day of my life.
